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LITERARY  LANDMARKS  OF  EDINBURGH 


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CANOKGATE,   FROM    TOP   OK    HYNDFORD  S  CLOSE,  50   HIGH    STREET 


LITERARY    LANDMARKS 


OF 


EDINBURGH 


Hjrfl 


BY 


LAURENCE   HUTTON 

AUTHOR     OF     "LITERARY     LANDMARKS     OF     LONDON1 
"CURIOSITIES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  STAGE"  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW    YORK 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    FRANKLIN    SQUARE 

1891 


Copyright,  1891,  by  Harper  &  Brothers. 

All  rights  reserved 


E4H9 


TO 

E.  V.  H. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Canongate,  from    Top    of    Hyndford's 

Close,  50  High  Street Frontispiece. 

Drummond •     Facing  p.  16 

Johnson ■  l8 

Boswell 20 

Hume's    Lodgings,   Riddle's    Close,   322 

High  Street 2- 

James's  Court,  501  High  Street.    ...  24 
Smollett's  House,  St.  John  Street,  Can- 
ongate      26 

Adam    Smith's   House,  Panmure   Close, 

129  Canongate 28 

Gay "          y- 

Stewart 34 

Craig's  Close,  265  High  Street  ....  36 
Burns's  Lodgings,  High  Street,  between 
Baxter's    Close  and    Lady    Stair's 

Close 38 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Lady  Stair's  Close Facing  p.  40 

buccleuch  pend,  14  buccleuch  street  "  42 

Burns "  44 

Sciennes  House "  46 

Scott "  48 

Scott  Monument  from  the  South  End 

of  the  waverley  bridge "  52 

Wilson "  54 

Old  Harrow  Inn,  Candlemaker  Row    .  "  56 

39  Castle  Street 57 

Hogg "  58 

Jeffrey "  58 

Campbell "  60 

Brougham "  62 

Sydney  Smith "  62 

Brewster "  64 

21  Comely  Bank 65 

Carlyle "  66 

Carlyle's  Lodgings,  Simon  Square     .    .  "  66 

De  Ouincey's  Cottage,  Lasswade 67 

De  Ouincey "  68 


INTRODUCTION 


NO  city  in  the  world  of  its  age  and  size — for  Athens  is 
older  and  London  is  larger — is  so  rich  as  Edinburgh 
in  its  literary  associations ,  and  no  citizens  anywhere 
show  so  much  respect  and  so  much  fondness  for  the  his- 
tory and  traditions  of  their  literary  men.  This  is  partic- 
ularly noticeable  among  the  more  poorly  housed  and  the 
less  educated  classes,  in  whom  one  would  least  expect  to 
find  it.  Policemen  and  postmen,  busy  men  and  idlers, 
old  women  and  maidens,  no  matter  how  poor  in  dress  or 
how  unclean  in  person,  are  ever  ready  to  answer  ques- 
tions or  to  volunteer  information  —  sometimes  imperti- 
nent, often  pertinent — concerning  the  literary  shrines  of 
their  own  immediate  neighborhoods ,  and  they  display  a 
knowledge  of  books,  and  a  familiarity  with  the  lives  and 
the  deeds  of  the  bookmen  of  past  generations,  most  re- 
markable in  persons  of  their  squalid  appearance  and 
wretched  surroundings.  There  is  always  some  poor  old 
man  to  be  found,  generally  in  some  poor  old  public-house 
in  the  Old  Town — both  tavern  and  man  having  long  ago 
seen  their  best  days — who  will,  for  the  price  of  a  "gill," 
give  the  literary  pilgrim  personal  information  concerning 
the  literary  history  of  an  adjoining  close  or  wynd  or  pend 
which  is  not  to  be  gathered  from  any  of  the  printed 
books.  And  because  of  his  long  and  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  the  place  of  which  he  speaks,  his  identification 
of  a  particular  old  house — after  it  has  been  verified,  and 
usually  it  can  be  verified — is  often  of  more  value  than 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

that  of  all  the  guide-books  put  together.  For  while  he 
contradicts  himself  sometimes,  the  guide-books  sometimes 
contradict  each  other,  to  the  utter  confusion  of  the  seeker 
after  truth. 

It  has  been  said  that  "the  Scots  wha  hae  do  never 
spend/'  And  yet  the  poor  Scots  of  the  Old  Town  of 
Edinburgh,  rich  only  in  local  knowledge  and  tradition, 
are  certainly  generous  in  their  information  and  lavish 
with  their  good  will ,  and  without  the  kindly  help  and 
friendly  sympathy  of  many  a  miserably  clad,  rough-hand- 
ed, poverty-stricken  Solon  of  the  modern  British  Athens 
this  book  could  not  have  been  written. 

As  it  now  appears  it  was  a  labor  of  affection  as  well  as 
of  necessity ,  for  in  no  other  single  work  could  be  found 
half  of  what  I  wanted  to  know.  Inspired  by  a  reveren- 
tial curiosity  to  learn  something  about  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  Homes  and  the  Haunts  of  the  Scottish  Men 
of  Letters  in  their  own  Metropolis,  I  have  studied  scores 
of  local  histories  and  hundreds  of  biographies,  while  I 
have  spent  many  pleasant  weeks  in  patient,  painstaking 
examination  of  the  hallowed  neuks  and  corners  of  both 
ends  of  the  Town.  By  actual  observation  I  have  satis- 
fied myself  of  the  truth  of  every  statement  made,  and  I 
have  visited  personally  every  one  of  the  Literary  Land- 
marks of  which  I  write. 

There  is  no  space  here  to  enumerate  the  authorities 
i  -:k1.  or  the  local  antiquaries  consulted.  To  all  of  these, 
and  more  especially  to  Mr.  Anthony  C.  McBryde  for 
much  valuable  advice  and  assistance.  I  wish  to  extend 
my  sincerest  thanks.  And  whatever  there  may  be  of 
value  in  the  book  is  dedicated  to  the  citizens  of  Edin- 
burgh, and  to  the  strangers  within  their  hospitable  gates. 

Laurence  Hutton 


LITERARY  LANDMARKS  OF  EDINBURGH 


"  From  scenes  like  these  Old  Scotia's  grandeur  springs." 


THE  Scottish  men  of  letters  seem  to  have  been 
heroes  even  to  their  own  valets — when  they 
had  valets — and  they  are  certainly  revered  at  home 
as  much  as  they  are  honored  abroad.  While  Scotch- 
men's sons  in  the  antipodes  organize  Burns  Clubs 
and  Waverley  Societies,  their  fathers  erect  statues 
to  their  Scott  and  to  their  cotter  bard  in  every  cor- 
ner of  the  motherland  ;  when  the  poets  of  Scotland 
ask  for  bread  they  are  given  baronetcies  and  posi- 
tions in  the  excise ;  and  love  and  reverence  as  well 
as  stalled  oxen  go  therewith.  The  first  thing  which 
attracts  the  eye  of  the  stranger  upon  his  arrival  in 
Edinburgh  is  the  Scott  Monument,  not  the  Castle. 
The  figures  of  Allan  Ramsay,  Professor  Wilson,  and 
their  peers,  in  bronze  or  marble,  standing  on  the 
lofty  pedestals  upon  which  their  countrymen  have 
placed  them,  are  as  suggestive  of  Scotland's  might 
and  of  Scotland's  right  as  is  the  Palace  of  Holyrood 
or  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Giles.  And  the  long  line  of 
the  creators  of  Scottish  literature,  from  Drummond 


16  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

of  Hawthornden,  the  friend  of  Ben  Jonson,  to  John 
Brown  of  Edinburgh,  the  friend  of  Rab,  have  done 
more  to  make  and  keep  Scotland  free  than  have  all 
the  belted  knights  her  kings  have  ever  made. 

The  Roman  alphabet  was  probably  the  first  which 
found  its  way  into  Scotland  ;  its  introduction,  no 
doubt,  was  coeval  with  the  introduction  of  Chris- 
tianity; and  Richard,  Abbot  of  St.  Victor  in  Paris,  a 
celebrated  theologian,  who  died  in  1173,  may  be 
considered  the  earliest  literary  man  of  Scottish  birth. 
This  prior,  however,  had  but  little  to  do  with  Edin- 
burgh, and  the  first  Scottish  author  of  renown  who 
was  familiar  with  the  Netherbow  or  the  Castle  Hill 
was,  unquestionably,  Michael  Scott,  who  wrote  "A 
Booke  of  Alchemy  "  towards  the  end  of  the  thir- 
teenth century.  Between  his  day  and  that  of  the 
other  Michael  Scott,  who  wrote  "  Tom  Cringle's 
Log"  in  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
many  scores  of  brilliant  Scotchmen  have  walked 
the  High  Street  and  the  Canongate — men  "  with 
intellects  fit  to  grapple  with  whole  libraries,"  or  men 
who  have  been  the  author  of  but  one  immortal 
song;  and  men,  all  of  them,  of  whom  Scotland  and 
the  world  are  justly  proud. 

Although  William    Drummond   of  Hawthornden 
passed  the  greater  part  of  his  life  as  a 

Drummond  °  * 

retired  country  gentleman  at  his  fa- 
mous mansion  on  the  banks  of  the  Esk,  he  was  edu- 
cated at  the  High-school  at  Edinburgh  and  at  the 
Edinburgh  University,  to  which  latter  institution 
he  bequeathed  his  collection  of  books ;  and  from  his 


DRUMMOND 


DRUMMOND  17 

close  neighborhood  to  the  capital  he  was,  without 
question,  a  frequent  visitor  to  its  streets  and  closes. 
The  first  "  Hie  Schule "  of  Edinburgh,  in  which 
Drummond  was  a  pupil,  was  built  in  1567,  in  the 
garden  of  the  monastery  of  the  Blackfriars,  at  the 
east  end  of  the  present  Infirmary  Street,  and  near 
the  head  of  what  was  once  the  High-school  Wynd. 
It  was  taken  down  in  1777,  to  make  room  for  the 
second  High -school,  which  is  now  the  City  Hos- 
pital. The  present  University  buildings,  dating 
back  only  from  1789,  stand  upon  the  site  of  the 
original  establishment,  no  portion  of  which  has  been 
preserved. 

Hawthornden,  which  its  owner,  anticipating  Gray's 
famous  line,  described  as  a  sweet  flowery  place,  "  far 
from  the  madding  worldlings'  hoarse  discords,"  is 
but  seven  miles  from  Edinburgh  by  country  road, 
and  half  an  hour  by  rail.  Unfortunately  it  is  not 
the  identical  mansion  which  Ben  Jonson  knew,  al- 
though it  was  enlarged  and  altered  by  the  poet's 
friend  in  1638,  eleven  years  before  Drummond's 
death,  and  twenty  years  after  that  memorable  visit, 
upon  which,  perhaps,  in  most  minds,  the  Scotch 
poet's  fame  now  rests.  If  Drummond,  as  he  sat 
under  his  sycamore-tree  that  memorable  afternoon, 
watching  Jonson's  approach,  did  not  cry,  "  Wel- 
come, welcome,  royal  Ben,"  and  if  Jonson  did  not 
reply  on  the  instant,  "  Thank'e,  thank'e,  Hawthorn- 
den," as  tradition  has  ever  since  asserted,  there  can 
be  no  question  that  the  welcome  was  a  right  royal 
one.     Jonson  might  not  have  been  so  free  with  his 


1 3  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

thanks  and  his  speech,  however,  if  he  had  known 
that  his  "  Hawthornden  "  was  to  become,  at  his  ex- 
pense, the  inventor  of  interviewing.  Drummond 
died  at  Hawthornden  in  1649,  and  lies  in  the  church- 
yard of  Lasswade,  not  very  far  distant. 

The  Scotchman  who  was  to  outshine  Drummond 
Johnson  as  an  interviewer,  and  to  excel  all  the 
Bosweii  writing  world  in  that  particular  line, 
brought  another  if  not  a  greater  Johnson  to  Scot- 
land in  1773.  On  the  night  of  the  14th  of  August 
of  that  year  the  following  note  was  written  and 
received  in  Edinburgh:  "  Mr.  Johnson  sends  his 
compliments  to  Mr.  Boswell,  being  just  arrived  at 
Boyd's."  His  sojourn  at  this  time  lasted  but  four 
days.  After  their  return  from  the  Hebrides,  on  the 
9th  of  November,  Johnson  remained  about  a  fort- 
night in  the  Scottish  capital,  as  Boswell's  guest ; 
but,  except  to  Boswell,  neither  visit  was  freighted 
with  much  importance.  The  great  man  was  shown 
the  Parliament  House,  the  Advocates'  Library,  the 
Cathedral,  the  Castle,  the  College,  and  the  Cowgate, 
and  he  had  something  disagreeable  to  say  about 
each.  He  supped  heartily,  he  dined  heavily,  and  he 
talked  ponderously.  He  made  a  deep  impression 
upon  his  host's  "daughter  Veronica,  then  a  child 
about  four  months  old;"  and,  although  his  host  for- 
got to  mention  it,  he  so  pleased  Mr.  Henry  Erskine, 
who  was  presented  to  him  in  the  Parliament  House, 
that  Erskine  slipped  a  shilling  into  Boswell's  hand, 
whispering  that  it  was  "  for  the  sight  of  the  bear." 
"Boyd's,"  at  which  Johnson  alighted  on  his  first 


r;r% 


JOHNSON 


JOHNSON — BOSWELL  19 

arrival  in  Edinburgh,  was  The  White  Horse  Inn,  in 
Boyd's  Close,  St.  Mary's  Wynd,  Canongate  ;  but 
tavern,  close,  and  wynd  have  all  been  swept  away 
by  the  besom  of  improvement.  St.  Mary's  Wynd 
stood  where  now  stands  St.  Mary  Street,  and  the 
site  of  the  tavern,  on  the  northeast  corner  of  Boyd's 
Entry  and  the  present  St.  Mary  Street,  is  marked 
with  a  tablet  recording  its  association  with  Boswell 
and  Johnson.  The  White  Horse  continued  to  be 
a  coaching  house  until  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  in  Boswell's  day  it  was  one  of  the  best 
hostelries  in  the  town.  It  must  not,  however,  be 
confounded  with  The  White  Horse  Inn,  a  pictu- 
resque ruin,  with  its  shattered  gables,  its  broken 
chimneys,  and  the  date  1523  over  its  window,  still 
standing  at  the  foot  of  White  Horse  Wynd,  at  the 
other  end  of  the  Canongate.  This  is  one  of  the 
most  antique  buildings  left  in  Edinburgh,  and  it 
was  the  lodging -place  of  Captain  Waverley  "in 
stirring  '45." 

The  only  other  place  of  public  refreshment  asso- 
ciated with  Johnson  in  Edinburgh  or  its  neighbor- 
hood is  the  old  inn  at  Roslin,  at  which  the  bear's 
ward  and  the  bear  once  stopped  for  a  dish  of  tea  on 
their  way  to  Hawthornden.  No  longer  an  inn,  it 
stands  almost  directly  opposite  the  chapel,  back 
from  the  road,  and  is  now  a  private  house,  of  gray 
stone,  with  a  tiled  roof,  little  more  than  a  cottage  in 
size  or  condition. 

Some  one  has  called  Boswell's  Ursa  Major  "  the 
Jupiter  of  English  letters  with  one  satellite,"  which 


20  LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

sounds  very  epigrammatic,  but  is  not  very  true. 
The  grand  old  primary  planet  of  Bolt  Court,  who 
revolved  about  Fleet  Street  and  the  Temple  in 
the  days  of  the  Georges,  had  more  little  stars  in 
his  train  than  the  naked  eye  could  see.  Granting 
that  James  Boswell  was  the  first  satellite — a  stellar 
body,  by  the  way,  which  the  astronomers  describe 
as  having  no  "  sensible  eccentricity  " — how  can  the 
scientists  ignore  "Tom"  Davies,  Arthur  Murphy,' 
Topham  Beauclerc,  Bennet  Langton, "  Peter  Pindar," 
Lucy  Porter,  Letitia  Hawkins,  Anna  Williams,  Char- 
lotte Lenox,  or  Mrs.  Thrale?  If  these  were  not 
Jupiter's  moons,  the  whole  planetary  system  is  a 
delusion  and  a  snare. 

How  much  this  literary  Jupiter  owes  to  his  liter- 
ary satellites,  particularly  to  the  first  one,  it  is  not 
easy,  at  this  distance  of  time,  to  tell.  But  who 
reads  his  "  Journey  to  the  Western  Islands  of  Scot- 
land "  in  these  days  ?  How  often  is  his  "  Dictionary  " 
consulted?  What  influence  has  his  "Rambler" 
upon  modern  letters?  Which  sweet  girl  graduate 
or  cultivated  Harvard  "  man  "  of  to-day  can  quote 
a  line  from  "  The  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,"  or 
knows  whether  that  production  is  in  prose  or  verse? 
What  would  the  world  have  thought  of  Samuel 
Johnson  at  the  end  of  a  hundred  years  if  a  silly 
little  Scottish  laird  had  not  made  a  hero  of  him,  to 
be  worshipped  as  no  literary  man  was  ever  wor- 
shipped before  or  since,  and  if  he  had  not  written  a 
biography  of  him  which  is  the  best  in  any  language, 
and  the  model  for  all  others? 


- 


BOSWELL 


JOHNSON — BOSWELL  21 

Mr.  Croker  in  his  preface  calls  attention  to  the 
curious  fact  that  Boswell's  personal  intercourse  with 
Johnson  was  exceedingly  infrequent  and  limited ;  a 
fact  which  is  very  apt  to  be  overlooked  even  by  the 
more  careful  readers  of  the  "  Life."  They  first  met 
about  twenty  years  before  Johnson's  death  ;  and 
after  that  meeting  Boswell  was  not  in  England  more 
than  a  dozen  times.  Mr.  Croker  even  counted  the 
days  they  were  together  in  London,  as  well  as  dur- 
ing the  visits  to  Edinburgh  and  the  tour  to  the 
Hebrides,  and  shows  them  to  have  been  but  two 
hundred  and  seventy-six  in  all ;  so  that  this  mar- 
vellous biography,  with  its  minuteness  of  detail,  its 
small-talk  and  gossip,  its  wise  and  foolish  disclosures, 
is  the  result  of  but  nine  months  of  actual  observa- 
tion of  its  subject  by  its  author.  Were  nine  months 
ever  so  profitably  and  so  industriously  employed? 

Boswell's  house  in  James's  Court,  Lawn-market 
(a  continuation  and  part  of  the  High  Street),  to 
which  he  conducted  Johnson  as  soon  as  the  new 
arrival  had  thrown  the  lemonade  out  of  Lucky 
Boyd's  window,  and  had  threatened  Boyd's  waiter 
with  a  similar  mode  of  exit,  is  no  longer  in  exist- 
ence. James's  Court,  a  little  square,  has  three  dis- 
tinct entrances  from  the  Lawn-market,  and  is  sur- 
rounded by  houses  eight  or  nine  stories  in  height. 
In  its  present  state  it  is  picturesque  enough  and 
exceedingly  unsavory,  filled  as  it  is  with  ragged 
women,  beer  and  whiskey  soddened  men,  dirty  chil- 
dren, and  clothes  which  are  hung  out  to  dry  and 
are  supposed  to  be  clean.     Robert  Chambers  was 


22  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

of  the  opinion  that  Boswell  had  two  different  suites 
of  apartments  in  this  court,  and  there  is  every  reason 
to  believe  that  as  tenant  of  the  earlier  of  these  he 
succeeded  David  Hume,  who  had  gone  there  in 
1762.  This  "  land  "  was  accidentally  and  totally  de- 
stroyed by  fire  in  1857. 

Fortunately  for  Bosvvell's  own  peace  of  mind,  he 
had  left  Hume's  old  lodgings  when  Johnson  was 
his  guest,  for  if  Johnson  had  been  told  that  the 
rooms  he  occupied  had  ever  been  profaned  by  the 
presence  of  "  that  echo  of  Voltaire,"  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  Mrs.  Boswell's  tea,  and  Veronica  herself,  and 
all  of  the  Boswell  family,  would  have  gone  the  way 
of  Lucky  Boyd's  lemonade. 

Hume's   first    Edinburgh   home  was   in    Riddle's 

Close,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Lawn- 
Hume 

market — No.  322  High  Street — his  fam- 
ily consisting  of  himself,  a  maid,  a  cat,  and  now  and 
then  a  sister,  but  never  a  wife.  His  house  has  been 
described  as  "  in  the  first  court  reached  on  entering 
the  close,  and  it  is  approached  by  a  projecting  tur- 
ret stair."  It  is  black  with  age  and  dust  and  with 
the  petrified  smoke  of  many  a  score  of  years.  It 
may  not  be  out  of  place  here  to  say  that  a  "  close," 
as  defined  in  Jamieson's  "Scottish  Dictionary"  and 
by  other  authorities,  is  a  passage,  an  entry,  an  area 
before  a  house,  a  place  fenced  in;  a  "  wynd  "  is  an 
alley,  a  lane  ;  a  "  pend  "  is  an  arch  ;  a  "  bow  "  is  the 
curve  or  bending  of  a  street ;  a  "  port  "  is  a  gate  ;  a 
"land"  is  a  house  consisting  of  different  stories, 
generally  including  different   tenements;   a  "toll" 


HUME  S   LODGINGS,   RIDDLE  S    CLOSE,   322    HIGH    STREET 


HUME  23 


is  a  turnpike;  a  "tolbothe,"  or  a  "  tollbooth,"  is  a 
jail;  a  "  trone,"  or  "  tron,"  is  a  weighing- beam  ;  a 
"  brig  "  is  a  bridge  ;  a  "  change-hoose  "  is  a  small  inn 
or  ale-house ;  a  "  hole  i'  the  wa' "  is  literally  a  hole 
in  the  wall,  a  doorway  in  a  piece  of  masonry  which 
has  no  window,  or  other  door,  or  other  embrasure 
of  any  kind;  "scale  stairs"  are  a  straight  flight  of 
steps,  as  opposed  to  a  "turnpike  stair,"  which  is  of 
a  spiral  form  ;  and  "  luckie,"  or  "  lucky,"  is  a  desig- 
nation given  to  an  elderly  woman,  the  mistress  of 
an  ale-house. 

Hume  began  his  "History  of  England"  in  Rid- 
dle's Close,  but  wrote  the  greater  part  of  it  in  Jack's 
Land,  in  the  Canongate,  to  which  he  removed  in 
1753,  and  where  he  lived  for  nine  years.  Jack's 
Land,  now  numbered  229  Canongate,  on  the  north 
side,  is  an  old,  dusky,  dingy,  four-storied  building, 
entered  from  Little  Jack's  Close,  and  still  standing 
as  Hume  left  it  to  go  to  James's  Court.  After  his 
return  from  the  Continent,  seven  or  eight  years 
later,  Hume  built  for  himself  a  more  pretentious 
house  in  the  New  Town.  It  is  now  No.  21  South 
St.  David  Street,  and  No.  8  St.  Andrew  Square,  the 
entrance  being  on  St.  David  Street,  facing  Rose 
Street.  John  Hill  Burton,  the  author  of  "  The  Book 
Hunter,"  in  his  "Life  of  Hume,"  says  that  a  tradi- 
tion existed  among  the  domestics  of  Hume's  house- 
hold that  St.  David  Street  was  so  called  in  derision, 
because  David  Hume  lived  in  it,  and  that  he  is  said 
to  have  told  one  of  his  "  lassies,"  who  protested 
against  what  she  considered  an  insult,  that  "  many 
3 


24  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

a  waur  man  than  he  had  been  made  a  saint  before." 
He  died  in  his  new  house  in  1776 ;  and  he  lies  under 
an  ugly  round  tower,  which  is  supposed  to  be  of 
classic  form,  in  the  Old  Calton  Burying- ground. 
There  is  no  record  of  the  place  of  Hume's  birth,  ex- 
cept that  it  was  in  the  "  Tron  Church  Parish,  Edin- 
burgh." 

It  is  a  curious  coincidence  that  the  man  so  closely 
associated  with  Hume  as  the  historian 

Smollett 

of  England  should  have  lived  for  some 
time  in  a  house  directly  opposite  the  house  once 
occupied  by  Hume  in  the  Canongate.  Mrs.  Telfer, 
a  sister  of  Tobias  Smollett,  occupied  the  second  flat 
of  the  house  182  Canongate,  over  the  archway  lead- 
ing into  St.  John  Street ;  and  here  the  novelist  spent 
some  time  in  1766.  The  house  is  unchanged;  the 
front  windows  look  out  upon  the  Canongate,  al- 
though the  apartments  are  entered  from  that  thor- 
oughfare through  the  first  door  to  the  right  after 
passing  the  pend,  and  up  the  circular  steps  in  the 
tall  abutment  now  numbered  22  St.  John  Street. 
Robert  Chambers,  writing  almost  sixty  years  after 
this  visit  of  Smollett  to  Edinburgh,  describes  him  as 
he  heard  him  described  by  "  a  person  who  recollects 
seeing  him  there,  as  dressed  in  black  clothes,  tall  and 
extremely  handsome,  but  quite  unlike  the  portraits  at 
the  front  of  his  works,  all  of  which  are  disclaimed  by 
his  relations."  This  is  a  picture  which  will  interest 
those  collectors  who  need  to  be  assured  by  contem- 
porary evidence  that  perhaps  no  genuine  engraved 
picture  of  the  author  of  "Peregrine  Pickle"  exists. 


JAMES  S    COURT,   SOI    HIGH    STREET 


SMOLLETT — ROBERTSON — BLAIR  25 

Smollett  studied  the  Scottish  capital  and  its 
inhabitants,  and  introduced  them  both  into  his 
"Humphry  Clinker,"  published  in  1771,  a  very 
curious  and  ingenious  commingling  of  facts  and 
fancy.  Picturing  himself  as  Matt  Bramble,  he 
writes  to  "Dr.  Lewis":  "Edinburgh  is  a  hot-bed 
of  genius ;  I  have  the  good  fortune  to  be  made 
acquainted  with  many  authors  of  the  first  distinc- 
tion, such  as  the  two  Humes,  Robertson,  Smith, 
Wallace,  Blair,  Ferguson,  Wilkie,  etc.,  and  I  have 
found  them  all  as  agreeable  in  conversation  as  they 
are  instructive  and  entertaining  in  their  writings. 
These  acquaintances  I  owe  to  the  friendship  of  Dr. 
Carlyle." 

The  Robertson  in  question  was  William  Robert- 
son, D.D.,  the  historian,  who   died    in 

Robertson 

1793,  in  the  Grange  House,  still  stand- 
ing south  of  the  Grange  Cemetery;    Wallace  was 
Robert   Wallace,  D.D.,   author   of  the 

Wallace 

"  Dissertation  on  the  Numbers  of  Man- 
kind," who   died   in   the   then    suburban   village   of 
Broughton    in    1771  ;    Blair  was    Hugh 

Blair 

Blair,  D.D.,  the  rhetorician,  who  was  the 
first  to  introduce  the  poems  of  Ossian  to  the  world, 
who  occupied  Hume's  apartments  in  James's  Court 
when  Hume  was  on  the  Continent,  who  once  lived 
in  Argyle  Square,  and  who  was  buried  in  the  Grey- 
friars'  Churchyard,  his  monument  standing  on  the 

south   side  of  the  church  ;   Wilkie  was 

Wilkie 

William  Wilkie,  D.D.,  whom  Henry 
Mackenzie  in  his  "  Life  of  Home  "  called  the  "Scot- 


26  LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

tish  Homer";  Ferguson  was  Adam  Ferguson,  the 
Adam        professor  of  moral  philosophy,  in  whose 
Ferguson      nouse   Burns  and  Scott  had  their  first 
and  only  meeting,  of  which  more  anon  ;  Dr.  Carlyle 
— known  as  "Jupiter  Carlyle,"  from    his   imposing 
Alexander     appearance  —  was  the    Rev.  Alexander 
cariyie        Carlyle,  of  Inveresk  and   Musselburgh, 
who  became  unpopular  in  his  church  on  account  of 
his  assistance  to  Home  in  the  production  of  "Doug- 
las " ;    and    Smith    was   Adam    Smith, 
author  of  "  The   Wealth   of  Nations," 
one  of  the  most   remarkable  books  which   bear  a 
Scotchman's  name — and  that  is  saying  much  for  it, 
and  for  him. 

Adam  Smith  spent  the  last  twelve  years  of  his 
life  in  Panmure  House,  Panmure  Close,  129  Canon- 
gate.  This  edifice  still  stands  on  the  right-hand 
side  of  the  close,  numbered  15,  as  one  enters  from 
the  Canongate.  He  died  here  in  1790,  and  was 
buried  in  the  Canongate  Church-yard,  a  tall  mural 
tablet  on  the  wall  of  the  rear  of  the  Court-house,  on 
the  extreme  left  of  the  ground,  recording  that  fact. 
"The  two  Humes"  of  whom  Smollett  wrote 
were  unquestionably  David  Hume  and 

Home  t     1  t  t  i  i  r        t\  i         »» 

John  Home,  the  author  of  "  Douglas, 
as  both  of  them  were  often  in  his  society  in  Edin- 
burgh. It  is  said  that  the  only  approaches  to  a  dis- 
agreement in  the  long  and  intimate  friendship  ex- 
isting between  these  "two  Humes"  were  regarding 
the  relative  merits  of  claret  and  port,  and  in  relation 
to  the  spelling  of  their  name,  the   philosopher  in 


"I-  v'u^j 


Smollett's  house,  st.  john  street,  canongate 


HOME  27 

early  life  having  adopted  the  orthography  indicated 
by  the  pronunciation,  the  poet  and  preacher  always 
clinging  to  the  old  and  invariable  custom  of  his 
family.  David  carried  the  discussion  so  far  that  on 
his  death-bed  he  added  a  codicil  to  his  will,  written 
with  his  own  hand,  to  this  effect :  "  I  leave  to  my 
friend  Mr.  John  Home,  of  Kilduff,  ten  dozen  of  my 
old  claret  at  his  choice  ;  and  one  other  bottle  of  that 
other  liquor  called  port.  I  also  leave  him  six  dozen 
of  port,  provided  that  he  attests,  under  his  hand, 
signed  John  Hume,  that  he  has  himself  alone  fin- 
ished that  bottle  at  a  sitting.  By  this  concession 
he  will  at  once  terminate  the  only  difference  that 
ever  arose  between  us  concerning  temporal  mat- 
ters." It  is  to  be  inferred  that  this  is  a  joke  which 
got  into  the  head  of  one  Scotchman  without  a  sur- 
gical operation. 

John  Home  was  born  on  the  east  side  of  Quality 
Street,  near  Bernard  Street,  Leith,  in  a  house  no 
longer  standing.  He  was  educated  in  the  grammar- 
school  of  his  native  town,  and  at  the  University  of 
Edinburgh.  In  1767  he  bought  the  farm  of  Kilduff, 
in  East  Lothian,  where  he  remained  until  he  re- 
moved to  Edinburgh,  thirteen  years  later.  In 
"Home's  Life  and  Letters"  no  hint  is  given  as  to 
his  Edinburgh  abiding-place.  He  died  there,  at  a 
ripe  old  age,  in  1808,  and  was  buried  in  the  yard  of 
South  Leith  Parish  Church,  on  the  outer  wall  of 
which,  on  the  south  side,  is  a  tablet  with  a  simple 
inscription  to  his  memory.  It  is  visible,  but  not 
legible,  from  Kirkgate  Street. 


28  LITERARY  "LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

"  Douglas  "  was  first  produced  upon  the  regular 
stage  on  the  14th  of  December,  1756,  at  the  Canon- 
gate  Theatre  (of  which  there  is  no  sign  now),  in  Play- 
house Close,  200  Canongate.  According  to  tradi- 
tion, however  —  and  very  misty  tradition  —  it  was 
performed  privately  some  time  before  at  the  lodg- 
ings of  Mrs.  Sarah  Warde,  a  professional  actress, 
who  lived  in  Horse  Wynd,  near  the  foot  of  the  Can-, 
ongate,  and  with  the  following  most  astonishing 
amateur  cast : 

Lord  Randolph. .Rev.  Dr.  Robertson  [principal  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Edinburgh]. 

Glenalvon Dr.  David  Hume  [historian]. 

Old  Norval Rev.  Dr.  Carlyle  [minister  of  Mussel- 
burgh]. 

Douglas Rev.  John  Home  [the  author  of  the  trag- 
edy]. 

Lady  Randolph.  .Dr.  Ferguson  [professor  of  moral  philos- 
ophy in  the  University  of  Edinburgh]. 

Anna  (the  Maid)... Rev.  Dr.  Hugh  Blair  [minister  of  the 
High  Church  of  Edinburgh]. 

Adam  Ferguson  as  Lady  Randolph  and  Hugh 
Blair  as  Anna  must  have  added  an  unexpectedly 
comic  element  to  the  tragedy.  It  is  not  more  than 
justice  to  say  that  Dugald  Stewart,  the  biographer 
of  Principal  Robertson,  asserts  that  the  Randolph 
of  this  cast  "  never  entered  a  play-house  in  his  life." 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Lady  Randolph  of  this  occa- 
sion, writing  to  Home  some  years  later,  used  very 
professional  and  rather  unfeminine  language  when 
she  said  :  "  Dear  John,  damn  the  actors  that  damned 


LOS  ANGELES,  -:-  CAL. 


ADAM   SMITH'S   HOUSE,  PANMURE   CLOSE,   I2g   CANONGATE 


MACKENZIE  29 

the  play."  Lord  and  Lady  Randolph,  by  the  way, 
were  billed  as  Lord  and  Lady  Barnet  when  "  Doug- 
las "  was  originally  produced,  and  the  original  Nor- 
val  originally  declared  his  name  to  be  "  Format!,  on 
the  Grampian  Hills,"  etc. 

Henry  Mackenzie,  the  Man  of  Feeling  and  the 
biographer  of  Home,  was  born  in  1745 
in  Liberton's  Wynd,  which  ran  north 
and  south  between  the  Lawn-market  and  the  Cow- 
gate,  where  George  IV.  Bridge  now  stands.  Like 
so  many  of  his  towns-people,  he  was  educated  in  the 
High -school  and  the  University.  He  had  many 
residences  in  Edinburgh  during  his  long  life.  An 
umbrella-maker  occupying  the  present  No.  36  Cham- 
bers Street  in  1889  pointed  out  with  no  little  pride 
that  tenement  as  having  once  been  Mackenzie's 
home,  when  it  was  known  as  No.  4  Brown  Square. 
The  last  years  of  his  life  were  passed  at  No.  6  Her- 
iot  Row,  in  one  of  a  long  line  of  eminently  "gen- 
teel "  houses  facing  the  Queen  Street  Gardens,  over 
which  he  had  shot  as  a  boy.  The  last  of  his  own 
generation,  he  was  the  connecting  link  between  the 
men  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  nineteenth. 
He  could  remember  the  figures  of  Allan  Ramsay 
and  Robert  Ferguson,  and  he  was  himself  in  his  old 
age  a  familiar  figure  to  some  of  the  men  of  his  guild 
who  walk  the  streets  of  Edinburgh  to-day.  He  died 
in  Heriot  Row  in  1 831,  at  the  age  of  eighty-six,  and 
he  lies  under  a  plain  mural  tablet  in  the  Greyfriars' 
Church-yard,  on  the  north  side  of  the  terrace.  He 
is  described  thereon  as  "  an  author  who  for  no  short 


30  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

time  and  in  no  small  part  supported  the  literary 
reputation  of  his  country;''  and  yet  the  custodian 
of  the  little  city  cemetery,  an  enthusiastic  lover  of 
the  spot  and  of  its  associations,  said,  in  a  regretful 
way,  to  an  American  visitor  not  very  long  ago,  that 
Mackenzie  was  entirely  forgotten  by  the  men  of  the 
present  day,  and  that  no  one  had  asked  to  see  his 
resting-place  in  many  years.  Such  graves  as  his 
should  be  pilgrim  shrines  ;  but  the  only  shrine  in 
Greyfriars'  which  pilgrims  care  for  now  is  the  grave 
of  a  man  of  whom  nothing  is  known  except  the  fact 
that  his  single  mourner  was  a  mythical  little  terrier- 
dog ! 

A  review  of  the  first  (or  Kilmarnock)  edition  of 
Burns's  poems,  contributed  by  Mackenzie  to  a  short- 
lived periodical  called  "The  Lounger,"  may  be  said 
to  have  been  the  turning-point  in  the  career  of  the 
poet,  and  to  have  decided  his  fate  and  his  fame. 
Burns  was  on  the  eve  of  emigration  perhaps  when 
this  article,  coupled  with  the  friendly  efforts  of  Dr. 
Blacklock,  brought  him  into  public  notice  and  into 
Edinburgh,  and  procured  for  him  the  patronage 
which  encouraged  his  later  efforts. 

A  neighbor  of  Mackenzie's  in  that  little  city  of 

the  dead  is  another  man  of  letters  almost  equally 

forgotten   by  the  world,  yet   of  whom   it  was  said 

when  he  died  that  Scottish  poetry  died  with  him. 

For  Allan   Ramsay   is   believed    to   lie 

Ramsay  .  . 

under  a  birch-tree  almost  in  front  of  the 
tablet  to  his  memory,  on  the  south  side  of  the  Grey- 
friars' Church,  although  there  is  no  stone  to  mark  his 


RAMSAY  31 

grave.  Ramsay  began  his  life  in  Edinburgh  as  an 
apprentice  to  a  periwig- maker  in  1701,  but  some 
time  between  the  years  1716  and  1720  he  became  a 
maker  and  a  seller  of  books,  his  publications  after 
the  latter  date  bearing  an  imprint  which  stated  that 
they  were  "sold  at  the  sign  of  the  Mercury,  oppo- 
site the  head  of  Niddry's  Wynd."  In  1726  he  re- 
moved from  this  shop  to  one  on  the  second  floor  of 
a  building  which  stood  upon  the  line  of  the  High 
Street,  "  alongside  St.  Giles's  Church,"  his  windows 
commanding  the  City  Cross  and  the  lower  part 
of  the  High  Street.  Here  he  changed  his  sign, 
substituting  the  heads  of  Ben  Jonson  and  Drum- 
mond  of  Hawthornden  for  that  of  Mercury ;  and 
here  he  added  to  his  business  a  circulating  library, 
the  first  in  Scotland.  Below  him,  on  the  ground- 
floor,  was  the  shop  of  William  Creech,  who  published 
the  second,  or  "  Edinburgh,"  edition  of  Burns's 
Poems  in  1787,  and  hence  the  name  Creech's  Land, 
so  often  given  to  Ramsay's  second  and  last  shop,  to 
the  confusion  of  the  interested  inquirer  after  literary 
landmarks.  It  was  a  part  of  the  Luckenbooths,  a 
group  of  queer- looking  buildings  which  stood  in, 
not  on,  the  High  Street,  blocking  up  and  disfiguring 
that  thoroughfare  in  the  days  of  Ramsay  and  Creech, 
but  long  since  removed. 

"  The  Gentle  Shepherd "  was  written  and  pub- 
lished while  Ramsay  was  trading,  and  living  too,  in 
the  establishment  opposite  Niddry's  Wynd — now 
Niddry  Street — and  the  house,  still  standing  at  155 
High  Street,  is,  for  its  associations'  sake,  one  of  the 


32  LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

most  interesting  of  the  old  buildings  in  Edinburgh 
to-day.  It  has  now  but  two  stories  (the  gables  that 
surmounted  it  have  lately  been  removed)  and  a  high 
and  sloping  roof,  from  which  rises  an  enormous 
square  chimney,  that  might  pass  in  the  frequent 
mists  of  the  place  for  a  cupola  or  a  bell  tower. 

The  last  years  of  Ramsay's  life  were  passed  in  a 
straggling  stucco  house  off  the  present  Ramsay 
Place  and  Ramsay  Gardens,  standing  now  very  much' 
as  Ramsay  built  it,  with  a  little  bit  of  green  behind 
it,  and  all  of  the  New  Town  of  Edinburgh  at  its 
front ;  having  from  its  windows  a  fine  view  of  the 
Castle,  of  a  long  line  of  streets  and  spires,  and  of  a 
beautiful  stretch  of  open  country.  Architecturally 
it  cannot  be  commended,  but  it  is  superbly  placed, 
and  it  hardly  merits  the  name  "  Goose  Pie,"  given 
it  because  of  its  peculiar  shape  by  the  would-be 
humorists  of  Ramsay's  day.  A  statue  of  Ramsay 
stands  in  Princes  Street  Gardens,  immediately  in 
front  of  this  house. 

The  theatre  built  by  Ramsay  in  1736,  and  in 
which  he  lost  so  much  of  the  money  his  books  had 
brought  him,  stood  at  the  foot  of  Carrubber's  Close, 
No.  135  High  Street.  It  was  afterwards  converted, 
and  became  a  church  called  Whitfield  Chapel ;  but 
no  stick  or  stone  of  chapel  or  play-house  now  re- 
mains.    Ramsay  and  Gay  often  met  in 

Gay  , 

an  ale  house  called  "Jenny  Ha  s  Change- 
house,"  which  used  to  stand  in  front  of  Oueensberry 
House,  in  the  Canongate,  the  mansion  of  Gay's 
patroness,  described  by  Walpole  as  "  Prior's   Kitty 


,.,.,.;,,,,,,,,.... 


GAY — STEWART  33 

ever  fair."  Johnson  in  his  "Lives  of  the  Poets" 
says  nothing  of  Gay's  Edinburgh  experiences,  but 
he  certainly  spent  some  time  there,  and  tradition 
used  to  point  out  his  lodgings  in  the  upper  story  of 
a  poor  tenement  opposite  Queensberry  House,  not 
far  from  Jenny  Ha's  establishment.  Queensberry 
House,  No.  64  Canongate,  is  now  a  House  of  Ref- 
uge for  the  Destitute.  It  is  considerably  altered  in 
outward  appearance,  and  is  now  an  ugly,  dark,  unin- 
viting pile  of  gray  stone,  with  no  attempt  at  orna- 
mentation or  architectural  display.  Jenny  Ha's 
Change-house  has  entirely  disappeared. 

Dugald   Stewart,  a   contemporary   and    friend   of 
Mackenzie,  and   the   biographer  of  Dr. 

Stewart 

Robertson,  lies  not  very  far  from  Adam 
Smith  in  the  Canongate  Church-yard,  near  the  south- 
west corner,  under  a  large  altar  tomb  of  gray  stone. 
He  lived  in  Lothian  Hut  in  the  Horse  Wynd,  Can- 
ongate, upon  the  site  of  which  a  brewery  now  stands, 
and  he  died  at  No.  5  Ainslie  Place,  in  the  New 
Town,  in  a  house  on  a  little  square  at  the  west  end  of 
Queen  Street,  surrounded  by  aristocratic  private  res- 
idences. He  was  a  constant  frequenter  of  Creech's, 
although  he  had,  naturally,  no  association  with 
Ramsay,  who  died  when  Stewart  was  a  boy  of  ten 
studying  at  the  High-school,  and  living  in  the  pre- 
cincts of  the  University,  of  which  his  father  was  pro- 
fessor of  mathematics. 

Two  notable  Scotchmen,  whose  mortal  parts  now 
keep  company  with  Smith  and  Stewart  in  the  Can- 
ongate Church-yard,  are  "  the  two  Fergusons,"  Rob- 


34  LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

ert  and  Adam,  men  far  apart  in  thought  and  char- 
acter during  their  lives,  but  closely  united  in  death. 
Robert       Robert  Ferguson,  whom  Burns  acknowl- 

Ferguson  edged  as  his  master,  was  born  in  175 1 
in  Cap  and  Feather  Close,  the  site  of  which  is  now 
covered  by  the  buildings  standing  on  the  east  side 
of  the  North  Bridge.  He  went  to  a  small  school  in 
Niddry's  Wynd,  and  later  to  the  first  High-school, 
and  before  he  had  reached  the  age  of  twenty-four  he' 
died  in  the  pauper  lunatic  asylum  called  Old  Darien 
House,  which  was  demolished  a  century  later.  A 
tablet  on  the  comparatively  modern  building  No.  15 
Bristo  Place  states  that  there  the  Bedlam  of  poor 
Ferguson  stood.  Like  so  many  children  of  genius, 
Ferguson's  conduct  reflected  but  little  credit  on  his 
dam,  and  he  was  a  relentless  enemy  towards  himself, 
if  not  towards  his  brothers  and  sisters.  He  aban- 
doned the  study  of  medicine  because  he  fancied 
himself  afflicted  with  every  disease  of  which  he  read 
the  description,  and  no  doubt  he  died  in  a  mad- 
house from  fear  that  he  would  die  insane. 

Ferguson  can  be  traced  to  his  taverns  and  his 
clubs  in  Edinburgh  more  easily  than  to  any  of  his 
homes,  except  the  last  one  ;  and  wherever  fun  was 
rampant  and  gin  cheap,  there  was  Ferguson  to 
be  found.  He  would  often,  as  he  sang  in  his 
"  Cauler  Oyster," 

"To  Luckie  Middlemist's  loup  in, 
And  sit  fu'  snug 
Owre  oysters  and  a  dram  o'  gin 
Or  haddock  lug." 


STEWART 


ROBERT   FERGUSON  35 

Lucky  Middlemist's  establishment  in  the  Cowgate 
has  given  place  to  the  south  pier  of  the  South 
Bridge. 

Another  favorite  resort  of  Ferguson's,  where,- 
"  vvi'  sang  and  glass  he'd  flee  the  power  o'  care,  that 
wad  harras  the  hour,"  was  the  Cape  Club,  which  met 
at  The  Isle  of  Man's  Arms,  Craig's  Close  ('265  High 
Street).  In  Craig's  Close  is  still  to  be  seen  the 
broken  -  down  and  neglected  sign  of  the  Cockburn 
Tavern,  in  front  of  a  broken-down  and  neglected 
tenement,  about  half-way  up  the  close  on  the  east 
side,  with  all  of  its  flashes  of  merriment  gone  this 
many  a  year.  Standing  as  it  does  "  between  the 
back  and  front  tenements,"  this  may  perhaps  have 
been  once  The  Isle  of  Man.  Still  another  of  the 
inns  to  which  Ferguson  went  to  "  get  his  cares  and 
pother  laid  "  was  Johnnie  Dowie's  Tavern,  in  Liber- 
ton's  Wynd,  which  was  later  a  favorite  resort  of 
Burns,  and  which  has  been  dubbed  "  The  Mermaid 
of  Edinburgh."  It  was  famous  as  the  "  Burns  Tav- 
ern" in  the  last  years  of  its  existence,  and  was  long 
one  of  the  architectural  lions  of  the  Old  Town  for 
Burns's  sake;  but  when  George  IV.  Bridge  was 
built  both  tavern  and  wynd  were  swept  away,  and, 
like  everything  else  associated  with  Ferguson  in  life, 
no  trace  of  it  is  left.  There  is  even  no  absolutely 
authentic  portrait  of  him  known  to  the  collectors  ; 
and  the  best,  if  the  most  homely,  of  the  contempo- 
rary descriptions  of  him  represents  him  as  being 
"very  smally  and  delicate,  a  little  in -kneed,  and 
waieded  a  good  deal  in  walking." 


36  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

How  far  Burns  was  really  influenced  by  the  verse 
of  Ferguson  it  is  not  easy  to  say  ;  he  certainly  was 
ever  ready  to  acknowledge  that  influence.  "  The 
Cotter's  Saturday  Night  "  was  assuredly  inspired  by 
"  The  Farmer's  Ingle,"  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
one  of  the  first  visits  Burns  made  in  Edinburgh  was 
to  the  neglected  grave  of  his  "  elder  brother  in  the 
Muses."  If  he  did  not  "sit  him  down  and  weep, 
uncovered,"  by  the  side  of  that  lowly  mound  in  the' 
Canongate  Church-yard,  there  can  be  no  question 
that  many  a  hat — of  American  make,  at  all  events — • 
has  since  been  lifted  in  reverence  there,  for  Burns's 
sake  if  not  for  Ferguson's.  Burns,  in  his  letter  to 
The  Honorable  Bailies  of  Canongate,  showed  his 
feeling  on  this  subject,  and  in  a  most  substantial 
Avay.  "  I  am  sorry,"  he  wrote,  "  to  be  told  that  the 
remains  of  Robert  Ferguson,  the  so  justly  celebrated 
poet,  a  man  whose  talents  for  ages  to  come  will  do 
honor  to  our  Caledonian  name,  lie  in  your  church- 
yard among  the  ignoble  dead,  unnoticed  and  un- 
known. Some  memorial  to  direct  the  steps  of  the 
lovers  of  Scottish  song  when  they  wish  to  shed  a 
tear  over  the  narrow  house  of  the  bard  who  is  now 
no  more  is  surely  a  Tribute  due  to  Ferguson's  mem- 
ory— a  Tribute  I  wish  to  have  the  honor  of  paying. 
I  petition  you,  then,  gentlemen,  to  permit  me  to  lay 
a  simple  stone  over  his  reverend  ashes,  to  remain 
an  unalienable  property  to  his  deathless  fame." 

The  simple  stone  which  "  directs  Pale  Scotia's 
way  to  pour  her  Sorrows  o'er  her  Poet's  Dust  "  is 
on  the  west  side  of  the  church,  not  many  steps  from 


Craig's  close,  265  high  street 


BURNS  37 

the  gateway,  and  on  the  left  as  one  enters  the 
church -yard.  It  is  always  well  cared  for,  and  a 
royal  Scottish  thistle,  planted  by  some  devout  hand, 
rises,  as  if  defiantly,  to  guard  the  spot. 

Time    has    dealt    kindly   with   the    landmarks    of 
Burns  in   the    Scottish  metropolis,  and 

Burns  .  .... 

improvement  in  its  disastrous  march  has 
passed  around,  not  over  them.  He  reached  town 
for  the  first  time  towards  the  end  of  November,  1786, 
when  he  found  lodgings  in  Baxter's  Close  ;  during  the 
same  winter  he  is  said  to  have  lived  on  the  Buccleuch 
Road  ;  and  in  the  winter  of  1787-88  he  had  rooms  in 
St.  James  Square  in  the  New  Town.  These  houses 
are  fortunately  still  standing,  as  are  also  the  Lodge 
of  Freemasons  in  St.  John  Street,  the  residence  of 
his  friend  Lord  Monboddo  in  the  same  street,  The 
Hole-in-the-Wa'  in  Buccleuch  Pend,  the  inn  at  Ros- 
lin,  and  Sciennes  House. 

Lockhart  in  his  "  Life  of  Burns  "  quotes  from  the 
manuscript  note-book  of  R.  H.  Cromek  as  follows: 
"Mr.  Richmond,  of  Mauchline,  told  me  that  Burns 
spent  the  first  winter  of  his  residence  in  Edinburgh 
in  his  [Richmond's]  lodgings.  They  slept  in  the 
same  bed,  and  had  only  one  room,  for  which  they 
paid  three  shillings  a  week.  It  was  in  the  house  of 
a  Mrs.  Carfrae,  Baxter's  Close,  Lawn -market,  first 
scale  stair  on  the  left  hand  going  down,  first  door  in 
the  stair."  John  Richmond  was  merely  a  lawyer's 
clerk,  but  the  apartment  was  not  quite  so  humble 
as  Allan  Cunningham  represents  it  in  his  "  Life  of 
Burns" — "a  deal  table,  a  sanded  floor,  and  a  chaff 


38  LITERARY   LANDMARKS    OF   EDINBURGH 

bed."  It  is  a  fair-sized  room,  panelled  with  wood; 
the  window,  however,  looks  out  upon  Lady  Stair's 
Close  (No.  477  High  Street),  not  upon  Baxter's 
Close  (No.  469  High  Street).  The  house  itself  was 
an  old  house  even  in  Burns's  day,  and  now  it  is  re- 
duced to  the  very  lowest  social  level.  It  holds  no 
tablet  to  tell  the  passer-by  of  its  former  famous  ten- 
ant;  but  nearly  all  of  its  present  humble  occupants 
are  well  aware,  and  very  proud,  of  the  fact  that  they' 
sleep  under  the  roof  that  once  sheltered  Robert 
Burns. 

Lockhart  is  the  authority  for  saying  that  Burns 
lodged  with  William  Nicoll,  one  of  the  teachers  of 
the  High-school,  on  the  Buccleuch  Road  (now  Buc- 
cleuch  Street),  during  the  winter  of  1786-87.  This 
house  is  over  the  pend — now  called  Buccleuch  Pend 
— leading  into  St.  Patrick  Square,  and  directly  op- 
posite Buccleuch  Place ;  and  Nicoll's  apartments 
were  on  the  top  floor.  If  Burns  did  not  lodge  with 
Nicoll,  he  was  certainly  familiar  with  the  neighbor- 
hood, for  in  the  archway  was,  and  still  is,  a  hole-in- 
the-wall,  leading,  a  century  ago,  to  an  underground 
public-house  kept  by  one  Lucky  Pringle,  and  much 
frequented  both  by  Nicoll  and  Burns.  The  oldest 
inhabitants  of  the  street  and  the  square  have  no 
recollection  of  Lucky  Pringle  or  of  her  dram-shop  ; 
but,  no  doubt,  it  was  in  the  basement  of  the  house 
just  to  the  north  of  Buccleuch  Pend,  and  numbered 
now  14  Buccleuch  Street. 

When  Burns  revisited  Edinburgh  he  lodged  with 
William   Cruikshank,  another  teacher  of  the   High- 


BURNS'S    LODGINGS,    HIGH    STREET,   BETWEEN    BAXTER'S    CLOSE   AND 
LADY    STAIR'S    CLOSE 


BURNS  39 

school,  in  a  house  on  the  southwest  corner  of  St. 
James  Square,  in  the  New  Town,  and  his  was  the 
topmost,  or  attic,  window  in  the  gable  looking  tow- 
ards the  General  Post-office,  in  Waterloo  Place. 
Herefrom  Burns  wrote:  "I  am  certain  I  saw  you, 
Clarinda;  but  you  don't  look  to  the  proper  story  for 
a  poet's  lodging — '  where  speculation  roosted  near 
the  sky.'  I  could  almost  have  thrown  myself  over 
for  very  vexation.  Why  didn't  you  look  higher? 
It  has  spoiled  my  peace  for  the  day.  To  be  so  near 
my  charming  Clarinda — to  miss  her  look  when  it 
was  searching  for  me!  ...  I  am  sure  the  soul  is 
capable  of  disease,  for  mine  has  convulsed  itself 
into  an  inflammatory  fever." 

This  window  of  Burns's  was  pointed  out  to  an 
enthusiastic  pilgrim,  one  summer  morning  in  1889, 
by  an  old  resident  of  St.  James  Square  to  whom 
Clarinda  had  pointed  it  out  herself.  He  remem- 
bered Clarinda  (Mrs.  M'Lehose)  in  her  old  age,  when 
she  lived  beneath  his  own  father  in  a  small  flat  in  a 
house  at  Greenside,  upon  an  insignificant  annuity 
allowed  her  by  her  brother.  She  went  once  to  her 
husband  in  Jamaica,  but  did  not  leave  the  ship,  as 
Mr.  M'Lehose  insisted  upon  her  immediate  return, 
on  the  ground  that  the  climate  would  not  agree 
with  her.  She  was  in  very  poor  circumstances  dur- 
ing her  later  years,  but  never  wearied  of  telling  the 
story  of  her  flirtation  with  Burns.  As  the  aged  resi- 
dent remarked :  "  The  auld  donnert  leddy  bodie 
spoke  o'  her  love  for  the  poet  just  like  a  hellicat  bit 
lassie  in  her  teens,  and  while  exhibitin'  to  her  cronies 


40  LITERARY    LANDMARKS    OF   EDINBURGH 

the  faded  letters  from  her  RobBie  she  would  just 
greet  like  a  bairn.  Puir  auld  creature,  she  never  till 
the  moment  o'  her  death  jaloused  or  dooted  Rob- 
bie's professed  love  for  her  ;  but,  sir,  you  ken  he  was 
juist  makin'  a  fule  o'  her,  as  his  letters  amply  show." 

Mrs.  M'Lehose,  deserted  by  her  husband,  lived,  in 
Burns's  time,  with  two  young  children  in  General's 
Entry,  which  lay  between  the  Potterrow  and  Bristo 
Street ;  but  no  houses  dating  back  to  Clarinda's  day 
stand  within  a  stone's-throw  of  Clarinda's  flat.  The 
somewhat  pretentious  public  school  on  Marshall 
Street  was  built  upon  General's  Entry. 

On  the  14th  of  January,  1787,  Burns  wrote:  "I 
went  to  a  Mason  lodge  yesternight,  where  the  M.  W. 
Grand  Master  Charteris  and  all  the  Grand  Lodge  of 
Scotland  visited.  The  meeting  was  numerous  and 
elegant ;  all  the  different  lodges  about  town  were 
present  in  all  their  pomp.  The  Grand  Master,  who 
presided  with  all  solemnity,  among  other  general 
toasts  gave  '  Caledonia  and  Caledonia's  bard,  Brother 

B ,'  which  rang  through  the  whole  assembly  with 

multiplied  honors  and  repeated  acclamations.  As 
I  had  no  idea  such  a  thing  would  happen  I  was 
downright  thunderstruck,  and,  trembling  in  every 
nerve,  made  the  best  return  in  my  power." 

This  was  at  the  Canongate  Kilwinning  Lodge  of 
Freemasons,  of  which  Burns  afterwards  was  made 
poet  -  laureate ;  and  his  inauguration,  painted  by 
William  Stewart  Watson,  is  familiar  to  all  Scotch- 
men and  Scotchmen's  sons  on  both  sides  of  the  At- 
lantic, by  reason  of  the  many  engravings  made  of  it. 


LADY    STAIR'S    CLOSE 


BURNS  41 

The  hall  of  the  Kilwinning  Lodge  is  still  standing, 
on  the  west  side  of  St.  John  Street,  and  is  square 
and  grim  and  rigid  in  appearance,  the  exterior  and 
interior  remaining  as  Burns  saw  them. 

Nearly  opposite  the  Kilwinning  Lodge  lived  Lord 
Monboddo  and  his  daughter,  the  lovely  Miss  Bur- 
net, whose  untimely  death  the  poet  mourned  in 
verse.  At  this  house,  still  left,  commonplace  and  in 
itself  uninteresting,  half-way  between  the  Canongate 
and  the  South  Back  of  the  Canongate,  and  now  num- 
bered 13  St.  John  Street,  Burns  was  a  frequent 
guest,  as  he  was  at  the  town  residence  of  many  a 
belted  knight  and  at  the  humble  home  of  many  an 
honest  man  in  Edinburgh  during  his  happy  life 
there,  in  houses  of  which  no  record  need  be  given 
here. 

The  old  inn  at  Roslin,  already  described  as  a 
stopping-place  once  of  Boswell  and  Johnson,  is  per- 
haps more  famous  still  because  of  certain  lines  to 
the  landlady  written  by  Burns  on  the  back  of  a 
wooden  platter,  in  which  he  declares  that  although 
"he  ne'er  was  here  before,  he'll  ne'er  again  gang  by 
her  door." 

A  print  of  Dowie's  Tavern  is  to  be  found  in 
Hone's  "Year-book,"  accompanied  by  a  verbal  de- 
scription written  in  1 83 1,  when  the  place  was  doom- 
ed to  destruction.  At  that  time,  the  writer  states, 
"  few  strangers  omitted  to  call  in  to  gaze  at  the 
coffin  [?]  of  the  bard ;  this  was  a  small  dark  room 
which  could  barely  accommodate,  even  by  squeez- 
ing, half  a  dozen,  but  in  which  Burns  used  to  sit. 


42  LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

Here  he  composed  one  or  two  of  his  best  songs,  and 
here  are  preserved  to  the  last  the  identical  seats  and 
table  which  had  accommodated  him." 

Another  favorite  tavern  of  Burns  which  has  long 
since  disappeared  was  that  of  Dawney  Douglas,  in 
Anchor  Close,  where  met  the  Crochallan  Fencibles, 
whose  performances  Burns  has  chronicled  in  more 
places  than  one  ;  and  where  "  rattlin',  roarin'  Willie," 
and  other  rattlin',  roarin'  gentlemen,  sat  at  the  board 
with  him  on  many  a  rattlin',  roarin'  occasion.  At 
the  foot  of  this  same  Anchor  Close,  243  High  Street, 
was  the  printing-office  of  William  Smellie,  where 
Burns  corrected  the  proofs  of  his  poems  in  that  win- 
ter of  1786-87.  This  establishment  was  taken  down 
in  1859  when  Cockburn  Street  was  constructed,  and, 
strangely  enough,  the  modern  presses  of  the  "  Scots- 
man "  newspaper  roll  and  tumble  now  upon  the  spot 
where  Black  and  Blair,  and  Smith  and  Hume,  and 
Burns  and  Ferguson  watched  the  printing  of  their 
own  works. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  all  the  literary 
landmarks  of  Edinburgh,  naturally,  is  the  house  in 
which  Burns  and  Scott  met  for  the  first  and  only 
time.  The  story  of  this  famous  encounter,  as  told 
by  Scott  himself,  is  here  given  in  full: — "As  for 
Burns  "  (he  wrote  to  Lockhart,  many  years  later),  "  I 
may  truly  say,  Virgilium  vidi  taut  urn.  I  was  a  lad 
of  fifteen  in  1786-87,  when  he  came  first  to  Edin- 
burgh, but  had  sense  and  feeling  enough  to  be  much 
interested  in  his  poetry,  and  would  have  given  the 
world  to  know  him  ;  but  I  had  very  little  acquaint- 


& 


BUCCLEUCH  PEND, 14  BUCCLEUCH  STREET 


BURNS  43 

ance  with  any  literary  people,  and  still  less  with  the 
gentry  of  the  West  Country,  the  two  sets  that  he  ' 
most  frequented.  Mr.  Thomas  Grierson  was  at  that 
time  a  clerk  of  my  father's.  He  knew  Burns,  and 
promised  to  ask  him  to  his  lodgings  to  dinner,  but 
had  no  opportunity  to  keep  his  word,  otherwise  I 
might  have  seen  more  of  this  distinguished  man. 
As  it  was,  I  saw  him  one  day  at  the  late  venerable 
Professor  Ferguson's,  where  there  were  several  gen- 
tlemen of  literary  reputation,  among  whom  I  re- 
member the  celebrated  Dr.  Dugald  Stewart.  Of 
course  we  youngsters  sat  silent,  looked  and  listened. 
The  only  thing  I  remember  which  was  remarkable 
in  Burns's  manner  was  the  effect  produced  upon 
him  by  a  print  of  Bunbury's  representing  a  soldier 
lying  dead  on  the  snow,  his  dog  sitting  in  misery  on 
the  one  side,  on  the  other  his  widow,  with  a  child 
in  her  arms.     These  lines  were  written  beneath  : 

"'Cold  on  Canadian  hills  or  Minden's  plain, 
Perhaps  that  parent  wept  her  soldier  slain  ; 
Bent  o'er  her  babe,  her  eye  dissolved  in  dew; 
The  big  drops,  mingling  with  the  milk  he  drew, 
Gave  the  sad  presage  of  his  future  years, 
The  child  of  misery,  baptized  in  tears.' 

"  Burns  seemed  much  affected  by  the  print,  or 
rather  the  ideas  which  it  suggested  to  his  mind. 
He  actually  shed  tears.  He  asked  whose  the  lines 
were,  and  it  chanced  that  nobody  but  myself  re- 
membered that  they  occur  in  a  half-forgotten  poem 
of  Langhorne's,  called  by  the  unpromising  title  of 
'The  Justice  of  the  Peace.'     I  whispered  my  infor- 


44  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

mation  to  a  friend  present,  who  mentioned  it  to 
Burns,  who  rewarded  me  with  a  look  and  a  word 
which,  though  of  mere  civility,  I  then  received  and 
still  recollect  with  very  great  pleasure. 

"  His  person  was  strong  and  robust ;  his  manners 
rustic,  not  clownish;  a  sort  of  dignified  plainness 
and  simplicity,  which  received  part  of  its  effect  per- 
haps from  one's  knowledge  of  his  extraordinary  tal- 
ents. His  features  are  represented  in  Mr.  Nasmyth's 
picture,  but  to  me  it  conveys  the  idea  that  they  are 
diminished,  as  if  seen  in  perspective.  I  think  his 
countenance  was  more  massive  than  it  looks  in  any 
of  the  portraits.  I  would  have  taken  the  poet,  had 
I  not  known  what  he  was,  for  a  very  sagacious  coun- 
try farmer  of  the  old  Scotch  school — i.  e.,  none  of 
your  modern  agriculturists  who  keep  laborers  for 
their  drudgery,  but  the  douce  gudeman  who  held 
his  own  plough.  There  was  a  strong  expression  of 
sense  and  shrewdness  in  all  his  lineaments ;  the  eye 
alone,  I  think,  indicated  the  poetical  character  and 
temperament.  It  was  large  and  of  a  dark  cast,  and 
glowed  (I  say  literally  glowed)  when  he  spoke  with 
feeling  or  interest.  I  never  saw  such  another  eye 
in  a  human  head,  though  I  have  seen  the  most  dis- 
tinguished men  of  my  time.  His  conversation  ex- 
pressed perfect  self-confidence,  without  the  slightest 
presumption.  Among  the  men  who  were  the  most 
learned  of  their  time  and  country,  he  expressed  him- 
self with  perfect  firmness,  but  without  the  least  in- 
trusive forwardness ;  and  when  he  differed  in  opin- 
ion he  did  not  hesitate  to  express  it  firmly,  yet  at 


BURNS  45 

the  same  time  with  modesty.  I  do  not  remember 
any  of  his  conversation  distinctly  enough  to  be 
quoted,  nor  did  I  ever  see  him  again,  except  in  the 
street,  where  he  did  not  recognize  me,  as  I  could  not 
expect  he  should." 

The  story  itself  is  familiar  to  all  admirers  of  both 
the  poets,  but  the  question  of  the  identity  of  the 
house  has  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion 
among  the  local  historians  and  antiquaries  for 
many  years.  That  it  was  the  house  of  Professor 
Adam  Ferguson  there  is  no  doubt,  but  as  to  where 
the  professor  at  that  time  lived  the  doctors  differ. 
In  Peter  Williamson's  "Edinburgh  Directory"  of 
1786-88,  his  address  is  given  as  Argyle  Square — 
which  is  near  the  University,  and  which  disappeared 
on  the  construction  of  Chambers  Street — and  this 
fact  led  to  the  inference  that  the  meeting  must  have 
occurred  in  that  place,  as  Burns  was  in  Edinburgh 
during  the  winter  of  1786-87.  But  Scott  himself 
speaks  of  Ferguson  as  living  in  an  insulated  house 
some  distance  from  the  town  (Argyle  Square  was 
almost  in  the  heart  of  the  city) ;  in  a  biographical 
sketch  of  Ferguson,  printed  in  "The  Transactions 
of  the  Edinburgh  Royal  Society"  (1861-64),  the 
writer  says  he  lived  at  that  time  "in  a  suburb  called 
the  Sciennes;"  Henry  Cockburn  in  his  "  Memorials" 
says,  "  Old  Adam  Ferguson  lived  just  east  of  my 
father's  house,"  which  would  point  clearly  to  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Sciennes ;  and  to  crown  all, 
Mr.  Archibald  Munro,  in  a  letter  to  one  of  the  Edin- 
burgh papers  published  about  ten  years  ago,  says 


46  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

he  found  a  printed  record  in  the  Register  Office 
showing  that  Professor  Ferguson  disposed  of  his 
house  in  Argyle  Square  on  the  3d  of  October,  1786 
— almost  two  months  before  Burns  arrived  in  town 
— and  that  he  got  possession  of  Sciennes  House  on 
the  nth  of  October  of  the  same  year.  This  must 
surely  settle  the  question  of  locality.  Certain  anti- 
quaries assert  that  the  stone  cottage  now  called 
Alice  Villa,  and  numbered  2  Sciennes  Hill,  Avas  Fer- 
guson's home — a  claim  which  neither  the  size  nor 
the  modern  construction  of  the  house  would  seem 
to  warrant.  So  that  the  old  building,  or  what  is 
left  of  it,  still  known  as  Sciennes  House — and  here 
for  the  first  time  pictured  —  certainly  appears  to 
have  been 

" the  spot 
Where  Robert  Burns  ordained  Sir  Walter  Scott." 

It  stands  on  the  north  side  of  Braid's  Place — 
which  is  not  numbered — two  doors  from  the  street 
called  "The  Sciennes."  The  present  front,  entirely 
rebuilt,  was  the  back  of  the  house  occupied  by  Fer- 
guson. The  original  front,  still  remaining  in  part, 
looked  out  upon  its  own  grounds,  now  a  paved  yard 
full  of  children  and  of  drying  clothes.  This  front  is 
not  visible  from  the  streets  about  it,  and  the  fact  of 
its  existence  is  comparatively  unknown  even  to  the 
inhabitants  of  its  own  immediate  neighborhood. 
Sciennes  House  in  its  day  must  have  been  an  im- 
posing mansion.  It  has  four  windows  in  breadth, 
and  is  three  stories  high  ;  on  its  roof  is  a  balustrade, 


SCOTT  47 

and  groups  of  flowers  and  fruits  carved  in  stone  are 
still  to  be  seen  upon  it. 

The  name  Sciennes,  by  the  way,  is  derived  from 
the  old  Convent  of  St.  Katherine  of  Siena,  which 
once  stood  near  by,  and  the  word  is  pronounced  in 
the  local  vernacular  as  if  spelled  "  Sheens."  The 
fact  that  all  of  these  points  are  now  for  the  first  time 
established  and  made  public  must  be  the  excuse  for 
the  devotion  of  so  much  space  to  this  particular 
matter. 

Those  lovers  of  Scott  who  love  the  inanimate 
things  which  Scott  loved  will  find  much 

SCOtt  •  1  .  y,   ,.     ,  ,  , 

to  interest  them  in  Edinburgh ;  tor, 
with  the  exception  of  the  house  in  which  he  was 
born,  almost  all  of  his  homes  and  haunts  in  the 
metropolis  are  still  to  be  seen  there,  and  in  very 
much  the  same  state  as  that  in  which  he  saw  them. 
A  tablet  upon  the  modern  house  No.  8  Chambers 
Street,  between  South  Bridge  Street  and  West  Col- 
lege Street,  states  that  it  was  built  upon  the  site  of 
the  birthplace  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  This  stood  at 
the  head  of  College  Wynd,  described  as  "a  steep 
and  straitened  alley"  ascending  from  the  Cowgate 
towards  the  southern  side  of  the  town.  It  was  orig- 
inally called  the  Wynd  of  the  Blessed-Mary-in-the- 
Field,  and  what  is  left  of  it  is  now  called  Guthrie 
Street,  perhaps  after  the  famous  Dr.  Guthrie,  who 
never  officially  recognized  the  Blessed  Mary  any- 
where. Scott's  house  and  others  about  it  were 
pulled  down,  when  Scott  was  a  child,  to  make  room 
for  the   front  of  the  new  College,  and  the   family 


4S  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

moved  to  No.  25  George  Square,  into  a  broad  and 
rather  imposing  mansion  in  what  was  once  a  fash- 
ionable quarter,  and  is  still  the  home  of  those  who 
belong  to  the  upper  middle  class  if  not  to  the 
gentry.  It  may  be  described  as  the  Washington 
Square  or  Chester  Park  of  Edinburgh.  The  Scotts' 
house  is  entirely  unchanged,  although  the  buildings 
on  each  side  of  it  have  been  retouched  and  regar- 
nished.  It  is  close  to  the  Meadows,  and  almost  in 
the  country. 

This,  according  to  his  own  statement,  continued 
to  be  his  "  most  established  place  of  residence  (after 
his  return  from  Prestonpans  in  1776)  until  his  mar- 
riage in  1797."  Here  Mrs.  Cockburn,  who  wrote 
"The  Flowers  of  the  Forest,"  found  in  1777  "the 
most  extraordinary  genius  of  a  boy  I  ever  saw.  He 
was  reading  a  poem  to  his  mother  when  I  went  in. 
I  made  him  read  on.  It  was  the  description  of  a 
shipwreck.  His  passion  rose  with  the  storm.  He 
lifted  his  eyes  and  hands.  '  That's  the  mast  gone,' 
says  he;  '  crash  it  goes.  They  will  all  perish.'  After 
his  agitation  he  turns  to  me.  'That  is  too  melan- 
choly,' says  he ;  '  I  had  better  read  you  something 
more  amusing.'  I  preferred  a  little  chat,  and  asked 
him  his  opinion  of  Milton  and  other  books  he  was 
reading,  which  he  gave  me  wonderfully.  .  .  .  Pray 
what  age  do  you  suppose  this  boy  to  be?  Why, 
twelve  or  fourteen.  No  such  thing.  He  is  not 
quite  six  years  old!"  In  this  same  George  Square 
house,  in  1791,  Jeffrey  went  to  see  the  young  Scott 
"in  a  small  den  in  the  sunk   floor,  surrounded  by 


SCOTT  49 

dingy  books ;"  and  here  he  made  the  translation  of 
Burger's  "  Lenore,"  his  first  published  literary  work. 
Scott's  earliest  school  was  in  a  "  small  cottage-like 
building  with  a  red-tiled  roof,  in  Hamilton's  Entry, 
off  Bristo  Street."  It  was  taken  down  not  very  long 
ago,  the  rear  of  the  house  No.  30  Bristo  Street  occu- 
pying its  site  now.  In  1779  he  went  to  the  High- 
school,  where  he  remained  some  years.  He  entered 
the  University  in  1783.  Scott's  High -school  was 
the  second  of  that  name.  It  is  now  the  City  Hos- 
pital, at  the  foot  of  Infirmary  Street,  and  so  far  as 
its  exterior  is  concerned  it  is  entirely  unchanged. 
A  story  of  his  conduct  here,  as  told  by  himself,  is 
too  good  to  be  lost.  "  There  was  a  boy  in  my  class 
at  school  who  stood  always  at  the  top,  nor  could  I 
with  all  my  efforts  supplant  him.  Day  came  after 
day  and  still  he  kept  his  place,  do  what  I  would,  till 
at  length  I  observed  that  when  a  question  was  asked 
him  he  always  fumbled  with  his  fingers  at  a  partic- 
ular button  in  the  lower  part  of  his  waistcoat.  To 
remove  it,  therefore,  became  expedient  in  my  eyes, 
and  in  an  evil  moment  it  was  removed  with  a  knife. 
Great  was  my  anxiety  to  know  the  success  of  my 
measure ;  and  it  succeeded  too  well.  When  the 
boy  was  again  questioned,  his  fingers  sought  again 
for  the  button,  but  it  was  not  to  be  found.  In  his 
distress  he  looked  down  for  it ;  it  was  to  be  seen  no 
more  than  to  be  felt.  He  stood  confounded,  and  I 
took  possession  of  his  place ;  nor  did  he  ever  recover 
it,  or  ever,  I  believe,  suspect  who  was  the  author  of 
his  wrong.     Often  in  after-life  has  the  sight  of  him 


50  LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

smote  me  as  I  passed  by  him  ;  and  often  have  I  re- 
solved to  make  him  some  reparation  ;  but  it  ended 
in  good  resolutions.  Though  I  never  renewed  my 
acquaintance  with  him,  I  often  saw  him,  for  he  filled 
some  inferior  office  in  one  of  the  courts  of  law  at 
Edinburgh.  Poor  fellow  !  I  believe  he  is  dead.  He 
took  early  to  drinking." 

Scott  was  married  on  the  day  before  Christmas, 
1797,  and  he  carried  his  bride  to  lodgings  on  the 
second  floor  of  No.  108  George  Street,  a  house  still 
standing,  next  door  to  the  corner  of  Castle  Street. 
Later  they  took  the  house  No.  19  South  Castle 
Street,  and  not  long  after  the  house  39  Castle  Street, 
where  they  lived  while  in  town  for  upwards  of 
twenty-six  years.  All  of  these  domiciles  are  virtu- 
ally unchanged.  Lockhart  has  fully  described  the 
interior  of  "  dear  old  39,"  and  the  routine  of  life 
there,  the  glorious  work  done  there,  the  notable 
company  gathered  there.  It  was  the  house,  as 
Scott  wrote,  which  had  sheltered  him  from  the 
prime  of  life  to  its  decline ;  and  he  left  it  with  no 
little  regret. 

He  never  had  a  settled  home  in  Edinburgh  after 
leaving  Castle  Street.  In  the  summer  of  1826  he 
was  lodging  with  Mrs.  Brown  at  No.  6  St.  David 
Street,  where  on  May  12th  he  wrote  :  "  When  I  was 
at  home  I  was  in  a  better  place.  I  must  when  there 
is  occasion  draw  to  my  own  Bailie  Nicol  Jarvie's 
consolation — '  One  cannot  carry  the  comforts  of  the 
Saut  Market  about  with  one.'  Were  I  at  ease  in 
my  mind,  I   think  the  body  is  very  well  cared  for. 


SCOTT  51 

Only  one  other  lodger  in  the  house,  a  Mr.  Shandy, 
a  clergyman — and,  despite  his  name,  said  to  be  a 
quiet  one."  On  the  15th  of  the  same  month  Lady 
Scott  died  at  Abbotsford.  Sir  Walter  returned  to 
St.  David  Street  on  the  30th  of  May,  and  remained 
there  until  the  13th  of  July.  Mrs.  Brown's  estab- 
lishment was  a  second-rate  lodging-house,  which  has 
now  disappeared.  Here  Scott,  among  other  things, 
was  diligently  at  work  upon  his  "  Napoleon."  In 
November,  1826,  he  took  a  furnished  house — more 
comfortable  in  every  way — at  No.  3  Walker  Street, 
on  the  east  side,  near  Coates  Crescent.  From  this 
house,  on  the  evening  of  the  23d  of  February,  1827, 
he  walked  to  the  Assembly  Rooms  in  George  Street, 
near  Hanover  Street,  and  there,  at  a  public  dinner, 
he  confessed  for  the  first  time  in  public  the  author- 
ship of  the  "  Waverley  Novels."  As  Lockhart  writes, 
"  The  sensation  produced  by  this  scene  was,  in  news- 
paper phrase, '  unprecedented.'  " 

Between  1828  and  1830  Scott  lived  at  No.  6 
Shandwick  Place — now  Maitland  Street,  a  continu- 
ation of  Princes  Street.  In  February,  1831,  while 
superintending  the  making  of  his  will,  he  was  the 
guest  of  his  bookseller,  Robert  Cadell,  in  Athol 
Crescent,  and  the  last  night  he  spent  in  Edinburgh 
was  at  the  Douglas  Hotel,  34  and  35  St.  Andrew 
Square,  now  the  office  of  the  Scottish  Union  and 
Insurance  Company;  and  on  the  morning  of  the 
1  ith  of  July,  1832,  he  was  carried  unconscious  from 
this  house  and  from  Edinburgh,  to  die  at  Abbots- 
ford  two  months  later. 
6* 


52  LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

To  follow  the  footsteps  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  in 
Edinburgh,  it  is  only  necessary  to  walk  through  all 
the  streets  and  alleys  of  the  Old  Town,  and  through 
most  of  the  streets  and  avenues  of  the  New.  De- 
spite his  fondness  for  Abbotsford,  he  was  a  thorough 
cockney  at  heart,  and  he  knew  and  loved  every  inch 
of  the  smoky  old  city  from  the  College  Wynd  to  St. 
Andrew  Square.  He  limped  at  full  speed  up  and 
down  the  Cowgate  in  his  boyhood  ;  and  "  no  funeral 
hearse,"  says  Lockhart,  "  crept  more  leisurely  than 
did  his  landau  in  his  middle  age  up  the  Canongate  ; 
not  a  queer  tottering  gable  but  recalled  to  him  some 
long-buried  memory  of  splendor  or  bloodshed,  which 
by  a  few  words  he  set  before  the  hearer  in  the  real- 
ity of  life." 

As  a  boy  Scott  was  fond  of  the  precincts  of  Hynd- 
ford's  Close  (50  High  Street) — of  which  some  of  the 
old  houses  are  still  left — for  here  lived  his  mother's 
brother,  Dr.  Daniel  Rutherford;  and  as  a  man  in 
1819  he  bade  farewell  to  his  mother  at  75  George 
Street,  now  a  shop,  and  carried  her  therefrom  to  St. 
John's  Church,  at  the  west  end  of  Princes  Street, 
where  she  lies  in  an  unmarked  and  unknown  grave. 
His  father,  who  died  some  time  before,  rests  in  the 
Greyfriars'  Church -yard,  on  the  south  side  of  the 
walk  by  the  archway  into  the  west  ground,  and,  ac- 
cording to  the  register,  "  just  at  the  foot  of  the  stone 
marking  the  foot  of  the  grave  of  Alexander  Grant." 
There  is  nothing  to  show  that  this  was  the  family 
burial-place  until  18 19,  although  it  is  said  that  the 
Town  Council  of  Edinburgh  contemplates  a  memo- 


p,  ,i: 


ffj 


"  nit 


t  P>ft  wife 


SCOTT  MONUMENT  FROM  THE  SOUTH  END  OF  THE  WAVERLEY  BRIDGE 


SCOTT  53 

rial  of  some  sort  there  at  some  time.  It  seems 
strange  that  the  great-souled,  great-brained  author 
of  "  Waverley,"  whose  heart  was  as  large  as  his  head 
was  high,  should  have  placed  a  commemoration 
stone  over  the  grave  of  "  Helen  Walker,  the  humble 
individual  who  practised  in  real  life  the  virtues  with 
which  fiction  has  invested  the  imaginary  character 
of  Jeanie  Deans,"  and  should  have  neglected  entire- 
ly the  spot  where  the  authors  of  his  own  being  were 
laid. 

Some  of  the  scenes  of  "  The  Heart  of  Mid-Lo- 
thian" are  said  to  have  been  written  under  a  tree  by 
the  side  of  Duddingston  church,  of  which  Scott  was 
chosen  an  elder  in  1806;  but  neither  Helen  Walker 
nor  her  father  nor  her  sister  ever  lived  in  the  little 
hut  now  called  Jeanie  Deans's  Cottage  on  St.  Leon- 
ard's Hill,  not  far  off,  where  local  legend  places  the 
scenes  of  the  story. 

One  of  the  most  notable  of  the  Edinburgh  houses 
associated  with  Scott  is  that  of  James  Ballantyne, 
his  friend  and  publisher,  at  No.  10  St.  John  Street, 
a  grim,  heavy-looking  mansion  of  plain  stone,  four 
stories  high,  a  few  doors  from  that  of  Lord  Mon- 
boddo,  so  familiarly  associated  with  Burns.  Here 
the  "Waverley  Novels  "  were  planned  and  discussed, 
and  were  read  from  manuscript  or  advance-sheets 
to  the  happy  and  select  few  in  the  secret  of  the 
Great  Unknown.  Ballantyne's  printing- office  was 
near  the  foot  of  Leith  Wynd,  now  Cranston  Street, 
and  is  at  present  an  upholstery  and  cabinet-making 
establishment. 


54  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

Constable's  shop,  in  Scott's  time,  was  at  No.  10 
Princes  Street.  Scott  naturally  was  often  there, 
and  also  at  the  establishment  of  the  Blackwoods — 
first  at  No.  \J  Princes  Street  (still  a  book-shop),  and 
later,  as  at  present,  at  45  George  Street,  on  the  north 
side.  Peter,  in  his  "  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk,"  de- 
scribes the  famous  oval  saloon  of  the  Blackwoods, 
with  its  "  loungers  and  literary  dilettanti  "  and  its 
portraits  and  sacred  relics.  A  new  generation  of 
loungers  has  appeared,  but  the  surroundings  are  all 
unchanged. 

Sir  Walter  was  a  frequent  guest  in  all  of  the  best 
houses  in  Edinburgh,  and  he  knew  the  book-rooms 
of  Wilson  in  Anne  Street  and  Gloucester  Place,  the 
poor  little  parlor  of  Hogg  in  Deanhaugh  Street,  the 
libraries  of  Jeffrey  in  George  Street  and  Moray 
Place,  and  no  doubt  Campbell's  flat  in  Alison 
Square,  as  well  as  he  knew  his  own  homes. 

Wilson  lived  with  his  mother  for  many  years,  and 
even  after  his  marriage  in  181 1,  at  No. 

Wilson 

53  Queen  Street,  near  Castle  Street,  in 
a  three  -  story  house  looking  out  on  Queen  Street 
Gardens.  In  18 19  he  removed  to  a  tall  and  rather 
imposing  house,  No.  29  Anne  Street,  in  the  north- 
western suburbs,  and  near  the  Water  of  Leith.  He 
went  to  No.  6  Gloucester  Place  in  1826,  where  he 
died  in  1854.  A  granite  obelisk  on  the  left  of  the 
main  walk  in  the  Dean  Cemetery  marks  Wilson's 
grave. 

By  the  side  of  Wilson  lie  the  remains  of  his  son- 
in-law,  William    Edmondstoune  Aytoun,  author  of 


>£&= 


WILSON 


WILSON  55 

"  The  Lays  of  the  Scottish  Cavaliers."  Aytoun, 
who  has  been  described  as  "  one  of  those  Charlie- 
over-the-Water  Scotchmen,"  lived  for  some  time  at 
No.  i  Inverleith  Terrace,  and  died  at  No.  16  Great 
Stuart  Street.  He  was  professor  of  belles-lettres 
in  the  University,  and  he  married  Jane  Emily  Wil- 
son, the  youngest  daughter  of  "  Christopher  North," 
in  1849. 

Haydon  once  described  Wilson  as  looking  "  like 
a  fine  Sandwich  Islander  who  had  been  educated  in 
the  Highlands.  His  light  hair,  deep  sea-blue  eyes, 
tall  athletic  figure,  and  hearty  hand-grasp,  his  eager- 
ness in  debate,  his  violent  passions,  great  genius, 
and  irregular  habits,  rendered  him  a  formidable  par- 
tisan, a  furious  enemy,  and  an  ardent  friend."  His 
tall  figure  made  him  a  member  of  the  "  Six  Feet 
Club,"  an  athletic  and  convivial  association  of  which 
the  Ettrick  Shepherd  was  once  president,  and  Sir 
Walter  more  than  once  the  umpire ;  his  irregular 
habits  perhaps  took  him  to  Johnnie  Dowie's  tavern 
now  and  then,  where  he  records  that  he  met  "  Tom  " 
Campbell ;  and  his  genius  led  him  to  inaugurate  the 
famous  "  Noctes  Ambrosianae,"  and  to  place  them 
in  the  tavern  of  Ambrose,  in  Gabriel's  Road.  This 
justly  celebrated  public-house,  which  is  said  to  have 
looked  more  like  a  farm-house  on  a  country  path- 
way than  a  city  inn,  has  long  since  disappeared,  and 
none  of  the  local  histories  give  its  exact  position. 
This,  according  to  those  who  still  remember  it,  is 
the  site  of  the  New  Register  House,  in  the  rear  of 
the  old  Register  House  ;  and  it  is  approached  from 


56  LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

West  Register  Street  by  the  narrow  alley  running 
now  between  the  New  Register  House  and  the  new 
Cafe  Royal.  This  little  paved  foot-path  was,  in  the 
time  of  Ambrose's,  a  green  lane  called  Gabriel's 
Road,  leading  diagonally  across  the  New  Town  to 
Silvermills,  and  it  is  said  still  to  claim  its  ancient 
privilege  of  a  right  of  way. 

Lockhart  and  Hogg  were  familiar  figures  at  Am- 
brose's tavern  in  the  famous  davs  of  the 

Hogg 

Round-table  there,  and  Hogg  was  one 
of  the  wildest  of  the  knights  sung  by  Wilson  in  his 
"  Noctes."  When  he  dropped  into  poetry  in  a  pro- 
fessional way  he  came  to  Edinburgh,  lodging  in 
Ann  Street,  "  down  along  the  North  Brig  towards 
where  the  new  markets  are,  and  no  vera  far  frae  the 
play-houses;"  and  sometimes  he  made  the  Harrow 
Inn  near  the  Grass-market  his  abiding-place.  Anne 
Street  was  swept  out  of  existence  altogether  upon 
the  construction  of  the  Waverley  Bridge,  but  an  ir- 
regular row  of  old  gabled  houses,  still  standing,  and 
converted  into  shops  and  poor  tenements,  from  46 
to  54  Candlemaker  Row,  are  the  shells  of  the  Har- 
row Inn. 

It  was  in  front  of  this  tavern,  by  the  way,  that 
Rab  first  introduced  Dr.  Brown  to  his  friends  James 
Noble,  the  Howgate  carrier,  and  to  Jess,  the  carrier's 
horse,  after  that  Homeric  dog-fight  under  the  single 
arch  of  the  South  Bridge. 

In  1812  and  later  Hogg  wrote  to  Archibald  Con- 
stable from  "  Deanaugh,"  which  was  Deanhaugh 
Street,  a  row  of  poor -looking  houses  in  the  north- 


OLD    HARROW    INN,   CANDLEMAKER    ROW 


HOGG 


57 


western  suburbs  of  Edinburgh,  running  from  Dean 
Terrace  over  the  Water  of  Leith  to  Raeburn  Place. 
Here  he  completed  "  The  Queen's  Wake." 

Lockhart  gives  a  queer  description  of  Hogg's  first 
dinner  with  the  Scotts  at  39  Castle  Street.  When 
he  entered  the  drawing-room  he  found  Mrs.  Scott, 
who  was "  then  an  invalid,  reclining  upon  a  sofa. 
"  The  Shepherd,  after  being  presented  and  making 
his  best  bow,  forthwith  took  possession  of  another 
sofa  placed  opposite  to  hers,  and  stretched  himself 
thereupon  at  his  full  length,  for,  as  he  said  after- 
wards, '  I  thought  I  could  never  do  wrong  to  copy 
the  lady  of  the  house.'  As  his  dress  at  that  period 
was  precisely  that  in 
which  any  ordinary 
herdsman  attends  cat- 
tle to  the  market,  and 
as  his  hands,  moreover, 
bore  most  legible  marks 
of  recent  sheep-smear- 
ing, the  lady  did  not 
observe  with  perfect 
equanimity  the  novel 
usage  to  which  her 
chintz  was  exposed. 
The  Shepherd,  how- 
ever, remarked  nothing 
of  all  this,  dined  heart- 
ily and  drank  freely, 
and  by  jest,  anecdote, 
and  song  afforded  plen- 
7 


39    CASTLE    STREET 


58  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

tiful  merriment  to  the  more  civilized  part  of  the 
company.  As  the  liquor  operated,  his  familiarity 
increased  and  strengthened  ;  from  '  Mr.  Scott,'  he 
advanced  to  '  Shirra,'  and  thence  to  '  Scott,' '  Walter,' 
and  'Watty;'  until  at  supper  he  fairly  convulsed  the 
whole  company  by  addressing  Mrs.  Scott  as  'Char- 
lotte.'" 

The  fact  that  Hogg  succeeded  Burns  as  poet- 
laureate  of  the  Kilwinning  Lodge  of  Freemasons 
will  show  the  regard  felt  for  him  by  that  portion  of 
the  community  at  least. 

Lockhart's  various  abiding- places  in  Edinburgh 
from  the  time  of  his  going  there  as  a 

Lockhart  .  f 

member  of  the  Scottish  bar  in  1 8 16 
until  his  establishment  in  London,  ten  years  later, 
are  not  very  clearly  defined.  It  is  recorded  that 
Scott  spent  much  time  with  him  one  summer  at  his 
house  in  Melville  Street,  Portobello.  He  was  at 
No.  23  Maitland  Street,  a  few  doors  from  Athol 
Crescent,  in  18 18,  and  a  letter  of  his  to  Hogg  was 
addressed  from  No.  25  Northumberland  Street  in 
1 82 1  ;  but  in  his  own  correspondence,  and  in  that  of 
his  friends,  and  in  the  printed  gossip  of  his  contem- 
poraries, no  hint  is  given  as  to  any  other  of  his  local 
habitations.  Naturally  he  was  often  in  Scott's  vari- 
ous houses,  and  a  guest  at  all  of  the  tables  of  all  of 
the  men  of  his  own  charming  coterie.  He  died  at 
Abbotsford,  and  was  buried  at  Sir  Walter's  feet. 

In  "  Peter's  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk,"  published 
anonymously  by  Lockhart  in  18 19 — a  most  amus- 
ing and  seemingly  correct  picture  of  the  men  and 


JEFFREY 


LOCKHART — JEFFREY  59 

manners  of  Edinburgh  at  that  time — he  speaks  with 
enthusiasm  of  the  book-shop  of  David  Laing,  at  No. 
49  South  Bridge.  "  Here,"  he  says,  "  my  friend 
Wastle  [Lockhart  himself]  commonly  spends  one  or 
two  hours  every  week  he  is  in  Edinburgh,  turning 
over  all  the  Aldines,  Elzevirs,  Wynkyn  de  Wordes, 
and  Caxtons  in  the  collection  ;  nor  does  he  often 
leave  the  shop  without  taking  some  little  specimen 
of  its  treasures  home  with  him."  David  Laing  was 
an  accomplished  antiquarian  scholar,  the  librarian 
of  the  Signet  Library,  and  the  intimate  friend  of 
Scott,  Jeffrey,  and  their  peers.  As  a  bookseller  he 
succeeded  his  father,  William  Laing,  who  had  a  shop 
in  the  Canongate  near  St.  Mary's  Wynd. 

Francis  Jeffrey  was  born  in  the  four-storied  house 
No.  7  Charles  Street,  which  has  known 
no  change.  In  1801  he  began  his  mar- 
ried life  on  the  third  floor  of  No.  18  Buccleuch  Place, 
one  of  a  row  of  plain  three-storied  houses  standing 
now  on  a  broad,  quiet  street,  two  or  three  hundred 
yards  long,  roughly  paved  with  round  cobble-stones, 
between  which  the  grass  forces  its  way  in  almost 
rural  luxuriance.  In  his  little  parlor  here,  with 
Brougham  and  Sydney  Smith,  the  next  year,  he  pro- 
jected the  "  Edinburgh  Review." 

Between  the  years  1802  and  1810  Jeffrey  lived  at 
No.  62  Queen  Street,  facing  the  Gardens.  In  18 10  he 
removed  to  No.  92  George  Street,  which  has  since 
been  modernized  by  the  addition  of  a  swell  front,  and 
is  now  a  shop.  His  last  home  was  in  an  imposing 
mansion   with    tall    columns,  numbered    24    Moray 


60  LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

Place.  Here  he  died.  His  high  sarcophagus, 
"  erected  by  his  friends,"  and  holding  a  bronze  me- 
dallion portrait,  stands  near  the  west  wall  of  the 
Dean  Cemetery. 

Carlyle,  in  his  "  Reminiscences,"  says  :  "  I  remem- 
ber striding  off  with  Procter's  introduction  one  even- 
ing towards  George  Street.  ...  I  got  ready  admis- 
sion into  Jeffrey's  study — or  rather  '  office,'  for  it  had 
mostly  that  air — a  roomy,  not  over-neat  apartment 
on  the  ground-floor,  with  a  big  baize-covered  table 
loaded  with  book  rows  and  paper  bundles.  On  one, 
or  perhaps  two,  of  the  walls  were  book  shelves,  like- 
wise well  filled,  but  with  books  in  tattery,  ill-bound, 
or  unbound  condition ;  .  .  .  five  pairs  of  candles 
were  cheerfully  burning,  in  the  light  of  which  sat 
my  famous  little  gentleman.  He  laid  aside  his  work, 
cheerfully  invited  me  to  sit  down,  and  began  talk- 
ing in  a  perfectly  human  manner."  It  is  to  be  re- 
gretted that  Jeffrey  never  put  on  record  his  first 
impressions  of  Carlyle. 

When  Sir  Walter  was  married  in  the  winter  of 
1797-98  Thomas  Campbell,  as  he  says 

Campbell  .  .  . 

of  himself,  "was  living  in  the  Scottish 
metropolis  by  instructing  pupils  in  Greek  and  Latin. 
In  this  vocation  I  made  a  comfortable  livelihood  as 
long  as  I  was  industrious.  But  'The  Pleasures  of 
Hope '  came  over  me.  I  took  long  walks  about 
Arthur's  Seat,  conning  over  my  own  (as  I  thought 
them)  magnificent  lines;  and  as  my  'Pleasures  of 
Hope'  got  on,  my  pupils  fell  off." 

Tradition  says  that  the  line  "  "lis  distance  lends 


CAMPBELL 


CAMPBELL — BROUGHAM  61 

enchantment  to  the  view  "  was  conned  on  Calton 
Hill,  while  history  proves  that  the  poem  itself  was 
written  in  Alison  Square,  "  in  the  second  floor  of  a 
stair  on  the  north  side  of  the  central  archway,  with 
windows  looking  partly  into  the  Potterrow  and  part- 
ly into  Nicolson  Street."  This  house  is  still  stand- 
ing, although  certain  portions  of  the  tenement  of 
which  it  formed  a  part  were  removed  when  Marshall 
Street  was  cut  through  that  part  of  the  town  in 
1876.  "  During  the  period  of  the  poet's  occupancy," 
writes  Mr.  Anthony  C.  McBryde,  "and  until  about 
twenty  years  since,  the  tenement  or  block  divided 
Alison  and  Nicolson  Squares,  but  gave  access  to 
both  by  a  pend,  or  archway." 

It   is   said    that    Brougham,  walking   once   in   the 
Greyfriars'  Church-yard,  pointed  out  to 

Brougham 

Robert  Chambers  a  tall  "land,'  still 
standing  in  1891,  at  the  corner  of  the  Cowgate  and 
Candlemaker  Row,  as  the  scene  of  his  birth.  Ac- 
cording to  the  authority  of  his  mother,  however,  as 
recorded  in  his  own  "  Life,  Written  by  Himself,"  he 
was  born  at  21  St.  Andrew  Square,  the  once  fine  old 
mansion  at  the  corner  of  St.  David  Street,  occupied, 
in  1891,  by  the  officers  of  the  City  of  Glasgow  In- 
surance Company.  He  went  to  a  day-school  in 
George  Street  when  very  young,  and  later  to  the 
High -school  and  to  the  University.  It  is  known 
that  his  father  lived  in  George  Street  at  one  time, 
but  in  his  "Autobiography"  Brougham  gives  no 
hint  as  to  any  of  his  Edinburgh  homes,  except  the 
first  one;  although  he  confesses  to  "high  jinks" — 


62  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

the  expression  is  his  own— at  the  Apollo  Club,  and 
to  oysters  at  Johnny  Dovv's  [Dovvies?].  He  writes: 
"I  cannot  tell  how  the  fancy  originated,  but  one  of 
our  constant  exploits,  after  an  evening  at  the  Apollo 
or  Johnny's,  was  to  parade  the  streets  of  the  New 
Town,  and  wrench  the  brass  knockers  off  the  doors, 
or  tear  out  the  brass  handles  of  the  bells.  ...  It  will 
scarcely  be  credited,  and  yet  it  is  true  as  gospel, 
that  so  late  as  March,  1803,  when  we  gave  a  fare- 
well banquet  to  Horner,  on  his  leaving  Edinburgh 
forever  to  settle  in  London,  we,  accompanied  by  the 
grave  and  most  sedate  Horner,  sallied  forth  to  the 
North  Bridge,  and  there  halted  in  front  of  Mr.  Man- 
derson  the  druggist's  shop,  where  I,  hoisted  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  tallest  of  the  company,  placed  my- 
self on  the  top  of  the  doorway,  held  on  by  the  sign, 
and  twisted  off  the  enormous  brazen  serpent  which 
formed  the  explanatory  announcement  of  the  busi- 
ness that  was  carried  on  within."  Brougham  was 
then  twenty-five  years  of  age,  and  the  "  Edinburgh 
Review  "  was  fairly  on  its  feet ! 

When  Sydney  Smith  arrived  in  Edinburgh  in  the 
summer  of  1708  he  found  lodgings  at  38 

Sydney  Smith  &      b  J 

South  Hanover  Street,  two  doors  from 
George  Street,  and  here  on  the  first  floor  he  lived 
for  about  a  year.  Later  he  was  lodging  at  19  Queen 
Street,  not  far  away,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1800  he 
took  his  young  bride  to  46  George  Street,  where  he 
lived  so  long  as  he  remained  in  the  Scottish  metrop- 
olis. None  of  these  domiciles  were  materially 
changed,  so   far    as    their   exterior   was    concerned, 


BROUGHAM 


SYDNEY    SMITH 


SYDNEY   SMITH — CHAMBERS  63 

when  these  lines  were  written,  ninety  years  later. 
Smith  preached  occasionally  in  the  pulpit  of  Archi- 
bald Alison,  father  of  the  historian,  in  Charlotte 
Chapel,  Rose  Street,  to  Dugald  Stuart  and  other 
famous  men  ;  and  a  little  volume  containing  six  of 
his  sermons  delivered  there,  and  published  in  1800, 
is  the  earliest  printed  book  that  bears  his  name. 
Charlotte  Chapel,  now  the  property  of  a  Baptist 
congregation,  is  still  standing  in  Rose  Street. 

Although  Smith  told  William  Chambers  once 
that  he  lived  "  in  Buccleuch  Place,  not  far  from  Jef- 
frey, with  an  outlook  behind  the  Meadows,"  there 
is  no  record  in  his  "  Life  "  by  his  daughter  Lady 
Holland,  or  in  the  "Life"  by  Mr.  Stuart  J.  Reed, 
that  he  had  any  more  intimate  acquaintance  with 
Buccleuch  Place  than  as  the  residence  of  his  friend 
and  as  the  cradle  of  the  famous  periodical ;  and  the 
originator  of  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  "  was  perhaps 
misunderstood  by  the  originator  of  the  "  Edinburgh 
Journal "  in  that  regard. 

Robert   and  William   Chambers  settled  in   Edin- 
burgh in  181 3  ;  their  first  home,  accord- 
chambers 

ing   to  William,  was  "a   floor  entering 

from  a  common  stair  in  West  Nicolson  Street." 
The  next  year  they  removed  to  a  floor  in  Hamil- 
ton's Entry,  Bristo  Street,  the  back  windows  of  the 
house  overlooking  the  small  court  in  which  was 
then  still  standing  Sir  Walter  Scott's  first  school. 
When  the  family  removed  to  Portobello  in  18 14,  the 
boys,  for  they  had  hardly  entered  their  teens,  found 
a  home,  such  as  it  was,  in  the  top  story  of  a  build- 


64  LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

ing  known  as  Boak's  Land,  in  the  West  Port,  and 
Robert  thus  described  it :  "  Our  room  and  bed  cost 
three  shillings  a  week.  It  was  in  the  West  Port, 
near  Burke's  place.  ...  I  used  to  be  in  great  dis- 
tress for  want  of  a  fire.  I  could  not  afford  that,  or 
candles.  So  I  often  sat  beside  our  landlady's  kitch- 
en fire,  if  fire  it  could  be  called,  which  was  only  a 
little  heap  of  embers,  reading  Horace,  and  conning 
my  dictionary  by  a  light  which  required  me  to  hold 
the  book  almost  to  the  grate." 

In  1 8 1 8  Robert,  then  sixteen  years  of  age,  opened 
a  little  shop  in  Leith  Walk,  opposite  Pilrig  Street, 
in  which  William  soon  after  joined  him,  and  thus 
began  that  successful  and  honorable  career  which 
has  given  the  brothers  so  enviable  a  name  wherever 
English  is  read.  Robert  lived  in  India  Place,  Stock- 
bridge,  in  Anne  Street,  and  at  No.  i  Doune  Terrace, 
where  he  remained  until  he  left  Edinburgh  perma- 
nently for  St.  Andrews  in  1863. 

Sir  David  Brewster,  a  contributor  to  the  "  Edin- 
burgh Magazine,"  and  the  editor  of  the 

Brewster 

"  Edinburgh  Cyclopaedia,  was  a  student 
at  Divinity  Hall  when  the  "Edinburgh  Review" 
Avas  founded  ;  and  he  preached  his  first  sermon  at 
the  West  Kirk  (St.  Cuthbert's)  in  1804.  He  was 
educated  at  the  High-school  and  at  the  University, 
and  he  dated  his  letters  from  George  Square ;  from 
No.  9  North  St.  David  Street  (in  1808),  and  from 
No.  10  Coates  Crescent  (in  1823). 

Robert  Pollok's  only  sermon  was  preached  in 
1827  in  the  former  chapel  of  Dr.  John  Brown — now 


-- 


M 


"•-" 


-% 


BREWSTER 


BREWSTER — POLLOK — THOMAS    CARLYLE 


65 


the   United  Presbyterian   Church — in  Rose  Street ; 
and  his  "Course  of  Time"  was  publish- 

Pollok  r 

ed,  at  the  suggestion  of  Professor  Wil- 
son, by  Blackwood  in  the  same  year.  The  greater 
part  of  the  poem  was  written  at  No.  3  Davie  Street, 
a  little  street  running  south  from  East  Richmond 
Street,  and  parallel  with  Nicolson  Street. 

The  Carlyles,  at  the  period  of  Thomas's  famous 
Thomas  visit  to  Jeffrey  in  George  Street,  were 
cariyie  living  at  Comely  Bank,  in  one  of  a  row 
of  two-storied,  uninteresting  houses,  calling  them- 
selves "villa  residences,"  at  the  northwest  of  Edin- 
burgh, quite  out  of  town  even  now,  and  facing  a 
green  called  Stockbridge  Public  Park.  Carlyle's 
cottage  is  numbered  21.     Here  Jeffrey  often  came, 


if,,:     m%mi 


P*v 


;t-Kb 


-**p*»i 


21    COMELY    BANK 


66  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

and  "he  was  much  taken  with  my  little  Jeannie," 
writes  Carlyle,  "  as  well  he  might  be,  one  of  the 
brightest,  cleverest  creatures  in  the  whole  world, 
full  of  innocent  rustic  simplicity  and  vivacity,  yet 
with  the  gracefulest  discernment,  calmly  natural  de- 
portment, instinct  with  beauty  and  intelligence  to 
the  finger  ends.  He  became,  in  a  sort,  her  would-be 
openly  declared  friend  and  quasi-lover ;  as  was  his 
way  in  such  cases.  He  had  much  the  habit  of  flirt- 
ing about  with  women,  especially  pretty  women, 
much  more  the  both  pretty  and  clever;  all  in  a 
weakish,  most  dramatic,  and  wholly  theoretic  way 
(his  age  now  fifty  gone),"  etc.  Comely  Bank  was 
the  first  home  of  the  man  and  wife,  and  in  it  they 
were  as  happy  as  it  was  in  their  power  to  be,  meet- 
ing Wilson,  Brewster,  De  Ouincey,  and  other  not- 
able men  and  women — although  never  Scott — and 
corresponding  with  Goethe. 

Carlyle's  first  Edinburgh  lodging,  humble  and 
very  cheap,  was  in  Simon  Square — a  dingy  little 
street,  then  as  now  full  of  dingy  and  forlorn  houses. 
It  is  entered  from  Gibb's  Entry,  104  Nicolson  Street. 
Later  he  lodged  in  Murray  Street,  now  Spey  Street, 
running  parallel  with  Leith  Walk  from  Pilrig  Street 
to  Middlefield  Street.  His  house,  No.  3  Spey  Street, 
is  a  decent  tenement,  from  the  front  windows  of 
which,  as  Mr.  Dickens  would  have  said,  the  occu- 
pants can  get  an  uninterrupted  view  of  the  dead- 
wall  over  the  way.  A  pane  of  glass  from  this  house 
is  preserved  by  Mr.  A.  Brown,  a  bookseller  in  Bristo 
Place,  upon  which  somebody,  perhaps  Carlyle,  had 


v 


%-' 


CARLYLE  S    LODGINGS,   SIMON    SQUARE 


DE   QUINCEY 


67 


scratched   with   a   diamond   four  lines — slightly  al- 
tered— from  "The  Queen's  Marys,"  to  wit: 

"  Little  did  my  mither  think, 
That  night  she  cradled  me, 
What  land  I  was  to  travel  in, 
Or  what  death  I  should  dee — 
O  foolish  thee !" 

The  last  line  sounds  not  unlike  Carlyle  ;  and  it  is 
not  improbable  that  the  man  who  called  Charles 
Lamb  in  print  an  "  emblem  of  imbecility,  bodily  and 
spiritual,"  might  have  written  his  own  mother  down 
on  a  window-pane  as  "  a  silly  bodie." 

Carlyle's  pictures  of  De  Quincey  at  this  time — 
1827  —  are    graphic    if    not    flattering. 

De  Quincey  /  fc>      r  ft 

"  He  is  one  of  the  smallest  men   you 
ever  in  your  life  beheld,  but  with  a  most  gentle  and 


i 


&  •  t  i 1 

■,:'Il('M"f "•..  . 


N 


DE    QUINCEY  S    COTTAGE,   LASSWADE 


68  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

sensible  face,  only  that  the  teeth  are  destroyed  by 
opium,  and  the  little  bit  of  an  underlip  projects  like 
a  shelf.  He  speaks  with  a  slow,  sad,  and  soft  voice, 
in  the  politest  manner  I  have  almost  ever  witnessed, 
and  with  great  gracefulness  and  sense,  were  it  not 
that  he  seems  decidedly  given  to  prosing.  Poor 
little  fellow  !  It  might  soften  a  very  hard  heart  to 
see  him  so  courteous,  yet  so  weak  and  poor,  totter- 
ing home  with  his  two  children  to  a  miserable  lodg- 
ing-house, and  writing  all  day  for  that  prince  of 
donkeys,  the  proprietor  of  '  The  Saturday  Post.'  " 

De  Quincey  lived  in  Great  King  Street,  in  Forres 
Street,  and  at  Duddingston;  later  he  lodged  at  42 
Lothian  Street,  "in  the  left-hand  flat  on  the  second 
floor."  This  is  one  of  the  few  houses  in  Edinburgh 
considered  worthy  of  a  label,  a  tablet  upon  it  re- 
cording the  fact  that  it  was  once  De  Quincey's  home. 
"The  little  cottage  at  Lasswade,"  occupied  by  "the 
poor  little  fellow "  during  the  last  ten  or  fifteen 
years  of  his  life,  still  stands  near  Midford  House,  on 
the  road  to  Hawthornden;  about  a  mile  and  a  half 
beyond  Lasswade,  and,  according  to  Mr.  Masson, 
"  near  the  foot  of  a  by-road  which  descends  to  that 
hollow  of  the  Esk  which  contains  Polton  mill  and 
the  Polton  railway  station." 

De  Quincey's  grave  in  St.  Cuthbert's  Church-yard 
is  designated  by  a  fiat  mural  stone  with  a  plain  in- 
scription. It  is  not  easily  found  without  a  guide,  but 
the  visitor  who  takes  the  first  pathway  to  the  right 
of  the  graveyard  after  entering  from  the  Lothian 
Road,  and  then  bears  to  the  left,  will  come  upon  it. 


DE    QUINCEY 


DE   FOE   AND   OTHERS  69 

Among  the  men  and  women  distinguished  in  the 
world  of  letters  who  at  some  time  or  other  have 
breathed  the  reekie  atmosphere  of  Edinburgh  may 
be  mentioned  De  Foe,  who  once  edited  the  "  Cou- 
rant ;"  Richard  Steele,  who  is  said  to  have  lodged 
in  Lady  Stair's  Close ;  Goldsmith,  who  lodged  in 
the  College  Wynd  ;  Rev.  John  Wesley,  who  preached 
on  the  Castle  Hill  in  his  eighty-seventh  year;  George 
Buchanan,  the  historian,  who  died  in  Kennedy's 
Close  in  the  High  Street,  a  few  doors  to  the  west 
of  the  Iron  Church,  and  who  was  buried  in  a  grave, 
now  unknown,  in  Greyfriars'  Church-yard  ;  Archibald 
Alison,  the  historian,  who  lived  in  his  father's  house, 
No.  44  Heriot  Row  ;  Hugh  Miller,  who  died  in  a 
semi-detached  villa  off  the  High  Street,  Porto- 
bello,  and  was  buried  in  the  Grange  Cemetery;  Dr. 
Thomas  Chalmers,  who  lived  at  No.  3  Forres  Street, 
who  died  in  the  house  at  the  west  end  of  Church- 
hill — No.  1 — Morningside,  and  who,  like  Dr.  Guth- 
rie, was  buried  in  the  Grange  Cemetery ;  Dean 
Ramsay,  who  died  at  No.  23  Ainslie  Place;  Lady 
Anne  Lindsay,  who  was  born  in  Hyndford's  Close, 
and  who  was  the  author  of  "Auld  Robin  Gray;" 
Jean  Elliot,  who  lived  in  Brown  Square,  and  who 
wrote  the  original  version  of  "  The  Flowers  of  the 
Forest;"  Mrs.  Cockburn,  who  wrote  "another  of  the 
same,"  who  lived  in  Blair's  Close,  at  the  Castle  Hill, 
who  died  in  Crichton  Street,  and  who  is  buried  in 
the  grounds  of  Buccleuch  Parish  Church,  at  the 
junction  of  the  Cross  Causeway  and  Chapel  Street; 
Catharine  Sinclair,  author  of  "  Modern  Accomplish- 


yo  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 

merits,"  "  Modern  Flirtations,"  and  many  other 
books,  who  lies  in  the  church-yard  of  St.  John's;  and 
Dr.  John  Brown,  "  the  Landseer  of  Literature,"  who 
lived  for  many  years  at  23  Rutland  Street,  and  who 
rests  now  in  the  New  Calton  Cemetery,  Regent's 
Road. 

Long  before    the    present   writer    had    the    good 
fortune  to  know  Dr.  Brown  and  his  dogs 

John  Brown 

in  their  own  home,  he  has  followed  them 
through  the  streets  of  Edinburgh  and  into  the  book- 
shops, for  the  simple  privilege  of  patting  "  Dick  "  or 
"  John  Pym  "  upon  the  head,  and  of  getting  a  kindly 
glance  therefor  from  their  devoted  and  gentle  friend. 
All  of  the  men  of  letters  from  either  side  of  the  Bor- 
der, from  either  side  of  the  North  Sea,  and  from  either 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  who  knew  Edinburgh  in  Dr. 
Brown's  time,  knew  well  that  house  in  Rutland 
Street,  and  loved  well  its  master;  and  by  no  more 
beautiful  road  and  in  no  more  delightful  society  can 
we  leave  Edinburgh — in  these  pages — than  by  the 
Dean  Road,  and  with  Thackeray  and  Dr.  Brown.  "It 
was  a  lovely  Sunday  evening  " — the  words  are  Dr. 
Brown's  own — "such  a  sunset  as  one  never  forgets; 
a  rich  dark  bar  of  cloud  hovered  over  the  sun,  going 
down  behind  the  Highland  hills,  lying  bathed  in 
amethystine  bloom;  between  this  cloud  and  the  hills 
there  was  a  narrow  slip  of  the  pure  ether,  of  a  tender 
cowslip  color,  lucid,  and,  as  if  it  were  the  very  body 
of  heaven  in  its  clearness ;  every  object  standing 
out  as  if  etched  upon  the  sky.  The  northwest  end 
of  Corstorphine  Hill,  with  its  trees  and  rocks,  lay  in 


JOHN   BROWN  71 

the  heart  of  this  pure  radiance,  and  there  a  wooden 
crane,  used  in  the  quarry  below,  was  so  placed  as  to 
assume  the  figure  of  a  cross;  there  it  was,  unmis- 
takable, lifted  up  against  the  crystalline  sky.  .  .  . 
As  they  gazed  Thackeray  gave  utterance,  in  a  trem- 
ulous, gentle,  and  rapid  voice,  to  what  both  were 
feeling,  in  the  word  Calvary  ! 

"The  friends  walked  on  in  silence,  and  then  turned 
to  other  things." 


INDEX   OF  PERSONS 


Alison,   Archibald,   Rev.,  63, 

69. 
Alison,  Archibald,  Sir,  63,  69. 
Aytoun.Wm.  Edmondstoune, 

54-5- 
Aytoun,  Mrs.  Wm.  E.,  55. 

Ballantyne,  James,  53. 
Beauclerc,  Topham,  20. 
Black,  Joseph,  42. 
Blacklock,  Thomas,  30. 
Blackwood,  William,  54,  65. 
Blair,  Hugh,  D.D.,  25,  28,42. 
Boswell,  James,  18-22,  41. 
Boswell,  Mrs.  James,  22. 
Boswell,  Veronica,  18,  22. 
Boyd,  "  Lucky,"  18-19,  2I>  22- 
Brewster,  Sir  David,  64,  66. 
Brougham,  Lord,  59,61-2. 
Brougham,  Mrs.  Henry,  61. 
Brown,  A.,  66. 
Brown,  John,  D.D.,  64. 
Brown,   John,    M.D.,    16,    56, 

70-1. 
Buchanan,  George,  69. 
Bunbury,  Henry  William,  43. 
Burger,  Gottfried  August,  49. 
Burke,  William,  64. 
Burnet,  Miss,  41. 
Burns,  Robert,  15,  26,  30,  31, 

34-  35-  36,  37-47.  53.  58- 
Burton,  John  Hill,  23. 

Cadell,  Robert,  51. 
Campbell,    Thomas,    44,    55, 
60-1. 


Carfrae,  Mrs.,  37. 
Carlyle,  Alexander,  25,  26,  28. 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  60,  65-7. 
Carlyle,  Mrs.  Thomas,  65-6. 
Chalmers,  Thomas,  D.D.,  69. 
Chambers,   Robert,  21-2,  24, 

61,63-4. 
Chambers,  William,  63-4. 
Charteris,  Francis  (Lord   El- 

cho),  40. 
"Clarinda"  (Mrs.  M'Lehose), 

39-44- 
Cockburn,     Mrs.     Catherine, 

48-9,  69. 
Cockburn,  Henry,  45. 
Constable,  Archibald,  54,  56. 
Creech,  William,  31,  33. 
Croker,  John  Wilson,  21. 
Cromek,  R.  H.,  37. 
Cruikshank,  William,  38. 
Cunningham,  Allan,  y]. 

Davies,  Thomas,  20. 

De  Foe,  Daniel,  69. 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  66, 67-8. 

Dickens,  Charles,  66. 

Douglas,  Downey,  42. 

Dowie,   "Johnnie,"   35,  41-2, 

55,62. 
Drummond,  William,  15,  16- 

18,31. 

Elcho,  Lord    ( Francis  Char- 
teris), 40. 
Elliot,  Jean,  69. 
Erskine,  Henry,  18. 


LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 


Ferguson,  Adam,   25,  26,  28, 

33-4,  42,  43,  45-6. 
Ferguson,  Robert,  29,33,  34_7- 

Gay,  John,  32-3. 
Goethe,  John  Wolfgang,  66. 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  69. 
Grant,  Alexander,  52. 
Gray,  Thomas,  17. 
Grierson,  Thomas,  43. 
Guthrie,  Thomas,  D.D.,47,  69. 

Hawkins,  Letitia,  20. 
Haydon,    Benjamin    Robert, 

55- 
Hogg,  James,  54,  55,  56-8. 
Holland  Lady,  63. 
Home,  John,  25,  26-9. 
Hone,  William,  41. 
Horace,  64. 
Horner,  Francis,  62. 
Hume,  David,  22-4,  25,  26,  27, 

28,42. 

Jamieson,  John,  22. 

Jeffrey,  Francis,  48,  54,  59-60, 

63,  65-6. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  18-22,  31,41. 
Jonson,  Ben,  16,  17,  18. 

Laing,  David,  59. 
Laing,  William,  59. 
Lamb,  Charles,  67. 
Langhorne,  John,  43. 
Langton,  Bennet,  20. 
Lenox,  Charlotte,  20. 
Lindsay,  Lady  Anne,  69. 
Lockhart,  John  Gibson,  38,  42, 
50,51,52,56,57,58-9. 

Manderson,  Mr.,  62. 
Masson,  David,  68. 
McBryde,  Anthony  C,  xiv.,  6 1 . 
McKenzie,  Henry,  25,  29-30, 

33- 
Middlemist,  "  Lucky,"  34-5. 


Miller,  Hugh,  69. 
Milton,  John,  48. 
M'Lehose,  Mrs.  ("  Clarinda"), 

39-40. 
Monboddo,  Lord,  37,41,  53. 
Munro,  Archibald,  45-6. 
Murphy,  Arthur,  20. 

Nasmyth,  Alexander,  44. 
Nicoll,  William,  38. 

"Peter  Pindar"  (John  Wol- 

cot),  20. 
Pollok,  Robert,  64-5. 
Porter,  Lucy,  20. 
Pringle,  "  Lucky,"  38. 
Prior,  Matthew,  32. 
Procter,  Bryan  Waller,  60. 

Oueensberry,  Duchess  of,  32-3. 

Ramsay,  Allan,   15.  29,  30-2, 

33- 
Ramsay,  Edward  Bannerman, 

D.D.,  69. 
Reed,  Stuart  J.,  63. 
Richard,  Prior,  16. 
Richmond,  John,  37. 
Robertson,  William,  D.D.,  25, 

28,  33- 

Scott,   Michael    (1214-1300), 

16. 
Scott,   Michael    ( 1789-1S35  ), 

16. 
Scott,  Lady,  50,  51,  57-8. 
Scott,  Walter,  Mr.,  52. 
Scott,  Mrs.  Walter,  52. 
Scott,  Walter,  Sir,  15,  26,  42- 

54,  55,  57-8,  59,60,63,66. 
Sinclair,  Catherine,  69-70. 
Smellie,  William,  42. 
Smith,  Adam,  25,  26,  33,42. 
Smith,  Sydney,  59,  62-3. 
Smollett,  Tobias,  24-5,  26. 
Steele,  Sir  Richard,  69. 


INDEX   OF   PERSONS 


75 


Stewart,  Dugald,  28,  33,  43. 

Telfer,  Mrs.,  24. 
Thackeray,    William     Make- 
peace, 70-71. 
Thrale,  Mrs.  Henry,  20. 

Voltaire,  22. 

Walker,  Helen,  53. 
Wallace,  Robert,  D.D.,  25. 


Walpole,  Horace,  32-3. 
Warde,  Sarah,  28. 
Watson,  William  Stewart,  40. 
Wesley,  John,  69. 
Wilkie,  William,  D.D.,  25. 
Williams,  Anna,  20. 
Williamson,  Peter,  45. 
Wilson,  John,  15,  54-6,  66. 
Wilson,  Jane  Emily  (Mrs.  Ay- 

toun),  55. 
Wolcot,  John,  20. 


INDEX   OF   PLACES 


Abbotsford,  51,  52,  58. 
Advocates'  Library,  18. 
Ainslie  Place,  33,  69. 
Alison  Square,  55,  61. 
Ambrose's  Tavern,  55,  56. 
Anchor  Close,  42. 
Ann  Street,  56. 
Anne  Street,  54,  64. 
Apollo  Club,  62. 
Argyle  Square,  25,  45,  46. 
Arthur's  Seat,  60. 
Assembly      Rooms,     George 

Street,  51. 
Athens,  xiii. 
Athol  Crescent,  51,  58. 

Baxter's  Close,  37-8. 
Bernard  Street,  Leith,  27. 
Blackfriars'  Monastery,  17. 
Blair's  Close,  69. 
Boak's  Land,  64. 
Boyd's  Close,  19. 
Braid's  Place,  46. 
Bristo  Place,  34,  66. 
Bristo  Street,  40,  49,  63. 
Broughton,  25. 
Brown  Square,  29,  69. 
Buccleuch     Parish     Church, 

69. 
Buccleuch  Pend,  37,  38. 
Buccleuch  Place,  38,  59,  63. 
Buccleuch  Road,  37,  38. 
Buccleuch  Street,  38. 
Burns  Tavern,  35. 

Cafe  Royal,  56. 


Calton  Burying-ground,  24. 
Calton  Hill,  61. 
Candlemaker  Row,  56,  61. 
Canongate,  16,  19,  23,  24,  26, 

28,32-3,41,  52,59. 
Canongate    Church-yard,   26, 

33-  34>  36-7. 
Canongate  Theatre,  28. 
Cap  and  Feather  Close,  34. 
Cape  Club,  35. 
Carrubber's  Close,  32. 
Castle,  The,  15,  18,  32. 
Castle  Hill,  16,69. 
Castle  Street,  50,  54,  57. 
Chambers  Street,  29,  45,  47. 
Chapel  Street,  69. 
Charles  Street,  59. 
Charlotte  Chapel,  6^. 
Church-hill,  69. 
City  Cross,  31. 
City  Hospital,  14,  49. 
City   of    Glasgow    Insurance 

Company,  61. 
Coates  Crescent,  51,  64. 
Cockburn  Street,  42. 
Cockburn  Tavern,  35. 
College  Wynd,  47,  52,  69. 
Comely  Bank,  65-6. 
Convent  of  St.  Katherine  of 

Siena,  47. 
Corstorphine  Hill,  70-1. 
Cowgate,  18,  29,  35,  47,  52,  61. 
Craig's  Close,  35. 
Cranston  Street,  53. 
Creech's  Land,  31,  33. 
Crichton  Street,  69. 


73 


LITERARY    LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 


Cross  Causeway,  69. 

Darien  House,  34. 
Davie  Street,  65. 
Dean  Cemetery,  54,  60. 
Dean  Road,  70. 
Dean  Terrace,  57. 
Deanhaugh  Street,  54,  56-7. 
Divinity  Hall,  64. 
Douglas  Hotel,  51. 
Dowie's  Tavern,  35,  41-2,  55, 

62. 
Duddingston,  68. 
Duddingston  Church,  53. 

East  Richmond  Street,  65. 

Forres  Street,  68,  69. 

Gabriel's  Road,  55,  56. 
General  Post-office,  39. 
General's  Entry,  40. 
George  IV.  Bridge,  29,  35. 
George  Square,  48-9,  64. 
George   Street,  50,  51,  52,  54, 

59,  60,61,  62,  65. 
Gibb's  Entry,  66. 
Gloucester  Place,  54. 
Grange  Cemetery,  25,  69. 
Grange  House,  25. 
Grass-market,  56. 
Great  King  Street,  68. 
Great  Stuart  Street,  55. 
Greenside,  39. 
Greyfriars'    Church-yard.    25, 

29-3°'  30-1.  52,  61,  69. 
Guthrie  Street,  47. 

Hamilton's  Entry,  49,  63. 
Hanover  Street,  51. 
Harrow  Inn,  56. 
Hawthornden,   16,   17,  18,  19, 

31,68. 
Heriot  Row,  29,  69. 
High  School,  16,  17,  29,  33,  34, 

38,  39,  49,  64. 


High  School  Wynd,  17. 
High    Street,  16,  21,  22,  31-2. 

35,  38,42,  52,  69. 
High  Street,  Portobello,  69. 
Holyrood  Palace,  15. 
Horse  Wynd,  28,  33. 
House  of  Refuge,  33. 
Howgate,  56. 
Hyndford's  Close,  52,  69. 

India  Place,  64. 

Infirmary  Street,  17,49. 

Inveresk,  26. 

Inverleith  Terrace,  55. 

Isle  of  Man's  Arms  Tavern,  35. 

Jack's  Land,  23. 
James's  Court,  21,  23,  25. 
Jamaica,  39. 

"Jennie  Dean's  Cottage,"  53. 
"Johnnie"   Dowie's    Tavern, 
"35.41-2,  55,62. 

Kennedy's  Close,  69. 
Kilduff,  27. 
Kilmarnock,  30. 
Kilwinning    Lodge   of    Free- 
masons, 37,  40-1,  58. 
Kirkgate  Street,  Leith,  27. 

Lady  Stair's  Close,  38,  69. 
Lasswade,  18,  68. 
Lawn-market,  21,  22,  29,  37. 
Leith,  27. 

Leith  Walk,  64,  66. 
Leith  WTynd,  53. 
Liberton's  Wynd,  29,  35. 
Little  Jock's  Close,  23. 
London,  xiii.,  20,  62. 
Lothian  Hut,  33. 
Lothian  Road.  68. 
Lothian  Street,  68. 
Luckenbooths,  31. 

Maitland  Street,  51,  58. 
Marshall  Street,  40,  61. 


INDEX   OF   PLACES 


79 


Mauchline,  37- 
Meadows,  The,  48,  63. 
Melville    Street,    Portobello, 

58. 
Middlefield  Street,  66. 
Midford  House,  68. 
Moray  Place,  54,  59-60. 
Morningside,  69. 
Murray  Street,  66. 
Mussleburgh,  26,  28. 

Netherbow,  16. 
New  Calton  Cemetery,  70. 
New  Register  House,  55,  56. 
Nicolson  Square,  61. 
Nicolson  Street,  61,  65,  66. 
Niddry  Street,  31. 
Niddry's  Wynd,  31,  34. 
North  Bridge,  34,  56,  62. 
North  St.  David  Street,  64. 
Northumberland  Street,  58. 

Old  Calton   Burying-ground, 
24. 

Panmure  Close,  26. 
Panmure  House,  26. 
Paris,  France,  16. 
Parliament  House,  18. 
Pilrig  Street,  64,  66. 
Plavhouse  Close,  28. 
Polton  Mill,  68. 
Portobello,  58,  63,  69. 
Post-office,  39. 
Potterrow,  40,  61. 
Prestonpans,  48. 
Princes  Street,  51,  52,  54. 
Princes  Street  Gardens,  32. 

Quality  Street,  Leith,  27. 
Oueen  Street,  33,  54,  59,  62. 
Queen  Street  Gardens,  29,  54, 

~59- 

Oueensberry  House,  32-3. 

Raeburn  Place,  57. 


Ramsay  Gardens,  32. 
Ramsay  Place,  32. 
Regent's  Road,  70. 
Register  House,  46,  55. 
Riddle's  Close,  22,  23. 
Rose  Street,  23,  63. 
Roslin,  19,  37,  41. 
Rutland  Street,  70. 

St.  Andrews,  Fife,  64. 

St.  Andrew  Square,  23,  51,  52, 

61. 
St.  Cuthbert's  Church,  64. 
St.  Cuthbert's  Church -yard, 

68. 
St.  David  Street,  23,  50-1,  61. 
St.  Giles  Church,  15,  18,  31. 
St.  James  Square,  37,  39. 
St.  John  Street,  24,  37,  41,  53. 
St.  John's  Church,  52. 
St.  John's  Church-yard,  70. 
St.  Leonard's  Hill,  53. 
St.  Mary  Street,  19. 
St.  Mary's  Wynd,  19,  59. 
St.  Patrick  Square,  38. 
"  Saut  Market,"  50. 
Sciennes,  The,  45,  46. 
Sciennes  Hill,  46. 
Sciennes  House,  37,  46-7. 
Scottish  Union  and  Insurance 

Company,  51. 
Scott  Monument,  15. 
Shandwick  Place,  51. 
Signet  Library,  59. 
Silvermills,  56. 
Simon  Square,  66. 
Six-Feet  Club,  55. 
South  Back  of  Canongate,  41. 
South  Bridge,  35,  56,  59. 
South  Bridge  Street,  47. 
South  Castle  Street,  50. 
South  Hanover  Street,  62. 
South   Leith   Parish  Church, 

27. 
Spey  Street,  66. 
Stockbridge,  64. 


So 


LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF   EDINBURGH 


Stockbridge  Public  Park,  65. 
Tron  Church,  24,  69. 

United  Presbyterian  Church, 

Rose  Street,  65. 
University,  16,  17,  18,  27,  28, 

29.33.45-49-  55.61,64. 

Walker  Street,  51. 
Waterloo  Place,  39. 
Water  of  Leith,  54,  57. 
Waverley  Bridge,  56. 
West  College  Street,  47. 


West  Kirk  (St.  Cuthbert's), 

64. 
West  Nicolson  Street,  63. 
West  Port,  64. 
West  Register  Street,  56. 
West  Richmond  Street,  65. 
White     Horse     Inn,    Boyd's 

Close,  19. 
White     Horse     Inn,     White 

Horse  Wynd,  19. 
White  Horse  Wynd,  19. 
Whitfield  Chapel,  32. 
Wynd  of  the   Blessed-Mary- 

in-the-Field,  47. 


THE  END. 


LITERARY  LANDMARKS  OF  LONDON. 

By  Laurence    Hutton.       pp.    xii.,    363.       Illustrated. 
Post  8vo,  Cloth.     New  Edition  in  Press. 

It  is  a  volume  that  every  one  should  possess  who  takes  an  interest 
in  the  local  associations  which  London  is  so  full  of,  unknown  though 
they  be  to  the  vast  majority  of  its  inhabitants.  With  this  compen- 
dium in  one's  hand  there  is  hardly  a  walk  that  one  can  take  in  London 
in  which  some  fresh  feature  of  interest  would  not  be  disclosed  for  all 
persons  who  have  any  taste  for,  and  knowledge  of,  literature  and  letters. 
— Standard,  London. 

It  is  brief  and  to  the  point,  yet  is  enriched  with  many  a  quaint 
story  and  many  a  pleasing  reminiscence.  It  is  a  model  of  industry. — 
Literary  World,  London. 

A  book  which  is  so  obviously  what  we  all  constantly  want  that  it 
seems  odd  and  hard  to  believe  that  it  has  not  been  forestalled  long  ago. 
True,  places  of  literary  association  are  noted  incidentally  in  ordinary 
hand-books,  but  this  is  the  first  work  in  which  a  systematic  attempt 
has  been  made  to  trace  the  residences  of  literary  worthies  in  London. 
Mr.  Hutton  has  attained  a  great  measure  of  completeness  in  his  task, 
and  it  would  be  difficult  to  name  any  author  of  importance  he  has 
omitted.  .  .  .  Altogether,  this  is  a  book  of  which  literary  America  may 
be  proud, and  literary  London  ashamed.  Mr.  Hutton  has  done  for  us 
what  we  have  never  done  for  ourselves. — Saturday  Review,  London. 

The  plan  laid  down  by  the  author  is  admirably  carried  out,  and  the 
main  object  is  distinctly  kept  in  view  from  beginning  to  end.  There 
is  no  attempt  to  write  lives  of  the  persons  chronicled,  but  all  the  facts 
connected  with  the  London  residences  of  those  authors  included  in 
the  book  are  marshalled  with  care,  and  the  result  is  a  most  readable 
volume.  Mr.  Hutton  has  not  been  content  to  gather  his  materials 
from  the  various  sources  available,  but  he  has  taken  care  to  verify  the 
different  statements  on  the  spot. — Atlienceum,  London. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  praise  Mr.  Hutton  too  highly  for  the  spirit 
in  which  he  has  conceived  his  design,  and  for  the  thoroughness  with 
which  he  has  carried  it  out.  Not  content  with  collecting  the  occa- 
sional references  of  his  predecessors,  he  has  cheerfully  undertaken  the 
double  drudgery  of  verifying  their  statements  (wherever  possible),  by 
means  of  contemporary  documents,  and  by  tracing  the  succession  of 
bricks  and  mortar  down  to  the  year  1885.  He  has  thus  written  not 
only  for  the  present  but  also  for  the  future.  .  .  .  Our  children  will 
therefore  be  grateful  to  Mr.  Hutton  for  commemorating  in  each  case 
the  result  of  his  own  inspection  of  every  historic  house,  its  condition, 
and  its  present  name  and  number.  And  we  ourselves  thank  him  for 
having  incalculably  augmented  the  value  of  his  book  for  use  by  two 
exhaustive  indexes — the  one  of  names,  the  other  of  places. — Acad- 
emy, London.  

Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  York. 

The  above  work  will  be  sent  by  mail,  postage  paid,  to  any  part  of  the  United  States, 
Canada,  or  Mexico,  on  receipt  0/ the  price. 


THE    AMERICAN    STAGE. 

Curiosities  of  the  American  Stage.  By  Laurence  Hut- 
ton.  With  Copious  and  Characteristic  Illustrations, 
pp.  xi.,  347.  Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt 
Top,  $2  50. 

Mr.  Hutton  has  packed  a  marvellous  amount  of  curious  informa- 
tion into  his  pages.  .  .  .  To  collectors  this  volume  must  be  quite  in- 
dispensable, and  there  is  no  lover  of  the  theatre  who  will  not  find  it 
entertaining  and  instructive. — JV.  Y.  Tribune. 

Mr.  Hutton  writes  entertainingly  and  with  knowledge  of  the  stage, 
and  his  new  book  is  crammed  full  of  facts.  .  .  .  No  writer  on  this  sub- 
ject is  more  painstaking  and  accurate  than  Laurence  Hutton.  His 
sources  of  information  are  as  trustworthy  as  possible.  His  memory 
is  generally  clear  and  unerring. — Ar.  Y.  Times.  A 

Theatrical  literature  has  nothing  better  and  few  things  as  good.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Hutton  seems  to  have  an  inexhaustible  fund  of  personal  reminis- 
cences, and  to  these  he  has  added  all  sorts  of  curious  information  from 
other  sources.  —  Cincinnati  Times- Star. 

One  of  the  most  important  contributions  yet  made  to  the  history  of 
our  native  drama.  ...  It  is  not  only  a  history  of  the  American  stage, 
but  it  suggests  the  interests  and  amusements  of  the  American  people 
for  the  past  century,  and  the  advance  in  literary  and  dramatic  stand- 
ards. This  is  a  book  which  will  fill  a  valuable  and  permanent  place 
as  a  book  of  reference,  and  as  a  cleverly  told  and  interesting  history 
of  the  people  who  have  amused  the  American  public.  .  .  .  Mr.  Hut- 
ton is  to  be  congratulated  upon  the  clearness  and  fulness  of  his  work, 
which,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  a  unique  and  valuable  addition  to  the  lit- 
erature of  this  century. — Boston  Traveller. 

This  is  by  far  the  best  book  of  its  kind;  some  readers  may  go  fur- 
ther and  pronounce  it  the  only  book  of  its  kind.  Neither  historical 
nor  biographical.it  is  full  of  interesting  chat  about  stage  people — more 
than  five  hundred  of  them. — N.  Y.  J  J  era  Id. 

Mr.  Hutton  has  brought  to  bear  on  his  subject  both  sympathy  and 
appreciation.  Moreover,  his  well-tested  knowledge  and  his  well- 
known  accuracy  stamp  all  his  statements  with  a  double  value,  all  of 
these  things  giving  to  his  "Curiosities"  an  importance  not  to  be 
attained  by  the  average  collection,  and  carrying  his  volume  far  beyond 
the  level  of  his  own  modest  estimate. — N.  Y.  Mail  and  Express. 

Mr.  Hutton  has  an  unerring  instinct  for  discerning  what  to  collect 
and  what  to  omit  from  his  book.  A  more  delightful  treasury  of  the 
"Curiosities  of  the  American  Stage  "  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive. 
— Philadelphia  Ledger. 


Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS.New  York. 

The  above  work  will  be  sent  by  mail,  postage  paid,  to  any  part  of  the  United  States, 
Camilla,  or  Mexico,  on  receipt  0/ the  price. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


MAY 


O0f  8 


MAY 


RECD  LD-URI 


MAR    51977 


Form  L-9-15»i-7,'32 


A  A      000  293  287    9 


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